For Jonathan, the Beazley became a chink in his armour when he entered university.

“Honestly, right after the Beazley, I just felt this pressure to maintain my standards. I worked a lot harder with my music degree, put lots of hours in. It’s funny because I remember there was high school pressure, but I was never anxious,” the classical guitar performer said.

“In highschool, I was playing basketball, practising my guitar for several hours a day in high school.”

Unlike many Beazley winners who went into medicine, Jonathan says he was torn between the profession and “something else”.

“I went to this introductory medicine lecture at UWA, decided it wasn’t a fit and immediately rang up the head of the music department and asked if they would have me,” the Churchlands Senior High graduate said.

The road from there had many swerves. He won the Australian Guitar competition in 1990, received the Hackett scholarship, and then received funding for Fulbright to pursue masters and doctoral studies in the prestigious Eastman School of Music in New York.

“Look, the music school matched my profile and my personality. It was a steep-learning curve. I often think my performance career would have taken off if I had stayed there further. The thing is when you do Fulbright, you do it with the knowledge that you’re going to have to come back."

Jonathan, who has a Masters in Guitar and PhD in Musical Arts from Eastman, said he tried to gain as much work experience before coming back and getting employed by WAAPA. He now supervises postgraduate students’ research in the artistic and historical specialty of guitars.

“Personally, I think this shows you our value as musicians," he said. “It’s often an undervalued field. Sometimes, I think if I should have done medicine but I don’t regret it.

“If anything, I would have told my Year 12 self then to have had a bit more fun, not lock myself in guitar practise.”

Neil Thomas (2007 winner)

Current : Research Associate at MacroPolo, Paulson Institute at the University of Chicago

While Jonathan says he wish he had more fun as a Year 12 student, Neil Thomas, Wesley College graduate, feels he should have learnt how to write, as a craft, earlier, learn another language and stay in another country.

“In whatever area you are, whether you are in corporate or a politician, being able to write well is such an undervalued skill,” the UWA graduate said.

Neil, in a similar vein to Jonathan, debated what he wanted to do in his first degree. He was studying a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts, in international relations, together.

“When you go to high school in Perth and you’re a Beazley medallist, you either did law/arts or medicine. I didn’t finish my law degree. In uni, I got interested in China and how it’s reshaping the world as globalisation continues.”

Neil, a research scholar, said he started learning Mandarin as his interest burgeoned, taking it seriously after graduating with joint first class honours. He moved to China for two years to become fluent.

With staying overseas, he said he gained a confident that perhaps, he, a Perth-boy could take on America’s ivy league.

“The Fogarty scholarship made me stay at UWA when I was considering Melbourne. After travelling overseas, I figured, ‘Oh yeah, I could do that.’ Before that, I hadn’t even considered Harvard. It’s just not on your radar unless you go abroad.”

Completing two years of research experience at ANU, Neil, then, went to Harvard’s highly-sought Kennedy School of Government to complete a Masters in Public Policy, International and Global Affairs.

Neil prioritises “openness” for the future.

“Look, I’ve written about border issues, US-China relations. I didn’t expect to be working at a think-tank right now.

“I might do a PhD, I might write a book, I’ve always liked keeping my options open. This may have a bit more insecurity at times but I’m devoting my time to do things that interest me and have my work published.”

Neil said he never expected to get the Beazley “given hundreds take the WACE yearly.” But, he feels it was good to have the “confidence from it” although it didn’t “influence” the organic way his ambitions came about.

“You can do what you’re interested in and hopefully, do it for a living if you work hard enough. For example, consider academia. There’s a wide range in the US and UK.”

Binu Jayawardena (2008 winner)

Current : Psychiatry Registrar, Sir Charles Gairdner

Where Neil decided to stay in Perth and then go to Harvard, Binu Jayawardena, a Hale School graduate, decided he would enrol in both Harvard and UWA right after winning his Beazley.

“So, I enrolled in both, studying engineering at Harvard, and studying medicine at UWA. I did decide to stick to med at UWA after a bit but I’m still enrolled there,” the medical graduate said.

Binu, who has worked in different types of psychiatry, said Perth was the key reason he left Harvard. “People can call it early retirement but the academic and professional networks here are very closely connected".

The UWA graduate in medical sciences and surgery said he was never a “biology-minded person” and was more physics and people orientated.

“Both my parents are engineers, I wanted to do engineering. And then, I was also a people-person, interested in arts, drama,” he said.

For Binu, the opportunity to test his passion for medicine came in the form of a rare scholarship that took him to Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney.

“I was awarded the Harvard Herbert Smith Fellowship and I could do research anywhere.

“For some stroke of luck, I chose that Sydney hospital and worked on physical treatments for depression. My research was stalled unfortunately. But, I ended up following psychiatrists around and thought, ‘psychiatrists are really the only doctors’.”

Binu says he came to this idea from the fact many fields in medicine rely on imaging and high forms of technology. “Technology is great but it can also mean you’re taking the clinician out of it. Most doctors are going to be out of work in the coming future.”

“The very concept of a doctor taking a little piece of wood, listening to your heart and telling you your problem, while giving you his/her garden’s herbs is archaic.”

Binu says he is concentrated now on specialising further in psychiatry, and wants to address mental health.

“Most of my research has been in mood and anxiety disorders. I’ve been working with “Young Lives Matter” foundation to look at a path to ending youth suicide using a mathematical model.”

Like Neil, Binu says he feels lucky to have it but remembers that it’s an assessment where you do “20 hours and then one is plucked the best out of 10,000 people based on this.”

For him, the Beazley can be troublesome socially. “I don’t go through a 48-hour period where someone doesn’t tell me I won it - there’s nothing you can do to shake it.”

Katerina Chua (2013 winner)

Current : Bachelor in Medicine (UWA)

Like Binu, Katerina, a St. Hilda’s graduate, is concerned about mental health and looking to specialise in psychiatry, too.

“There seems to be a gap between mental illness and the community. I mean, you read a lot about suicide, but no one’s actually looking to help. Most people prefer incident-results.”

Katerina, who had a toss-up between veterinary sciences and medicine, said she had a good psychiatry rotation at the Fremantle hospital and intends to head back there once she’s done with her medical degree.

She also decided to drop the option of veterinary sciences because she couldn’t cope with the idea that she would have to euthanise animals.

“I have a dog and I just can’t cope with that. Same way, I love children and I help gift wrap for Therapy Focus, aimed at disabled children. But if I had to deal with kids in medicine, no, it would be a lot emotionally harder for me.”

The first-generation Australian, whose Malaysian parents moved here in their teens, says she chose to stay in WA like other Beazleys'because she loves the lifestyle.

“Well, all my family is here, UWA had a nice campus. I wanted to work here so it seems easier. Plus I wanted to be close to my pet as well.”

Hui Min Tay (2015 winner)

Current : Bachelor of Science - Chemistry (University of Melbourne)

While the Beazley winners have seen Harvard in the mix, Cambridge hasn’t popped up.

Hui Min Tay, a Perth Modern School graduate, applied to Cambridge, Melbourne University and ANU. Cambridge said yes for the Natural Sciences (Physical) course.

Yet, Hui Min said she chose Melbourne because the university offered her a scholarship to cover her university costs and a $10,000 living allowance for three years.

Unlike many who are scared of research’s uncertainty, Hui Min relishes in, focusing on studying how to make molecules with particular features that allow them to stick to one another. She intends to pursue honours and will look at PhD options interstate or overseas.

For now, the complex secrets of chemistry is what Hui Min wants to unravel.

“My work involves examining chemical structures by X-ray crystallography and testing them for properties such as electrical conductivity at the moment."

Hui Min is grateful for her Beazley but believes the ATAR is just a number and it is “experience” that is valuable.

Caitlin Revell (2016 winner)

Current : Bachelor of Science - Engineering (UWA)

One thing Caitlin, a Perth Modern School graduate, wished she could have done in Year 12 was “believe in herself a little bit more.”

“Throughout the whole process, I asked myself if I had done this right, do I know this material enough. The reality is that you’re all set.”

Caitlin, who’s starting to specialise in mechanical engineering, said the Beazley medal, together with her ATAR, score helped her pursue UWA’s coveted Bachelor of Philosophy.

Under this research-driven degree, she hopes to gain as much scholarly experience and vacation work as she can to graduate and get a job.

Caitlin, who’s currently doing vacation work at Woodside, says engineering has always been in the cards for her.

“I guess I knew I enjoyed the science-side of things but wanted also more designer-type of things, the best of both worlds. I considered architecture but this is a good merge.”