The 17-year-old Narrabundah College student was named the winner of the national Class Clowns final in Melbourne on Friday night.

She was one of 12 of country's top student comedians to battle it out in the final, which was held as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Other than performing stand up for a class assignment in high school, her gig at the Class Clowns ACT heat last month was her first go at performing in front of an audience.

"At the ACT heat the audience was about 15 to 20 people. But last night was 800. It was really scary," she said.

"But in a way it was a lot nicer because when there's that many people it doesn't matter so much if some of them don't laugh because it's more likely that some of them will. So you get more caught up in the adrenaline and it's easier."

While she's still too young to go to most of the venues that host stand up comedians, Duong said she had really gotten into comedy in the last couple of years.

"I started more seriously watching it and being more familiar with specific comedians and I thought it was a possibility," she said.

"Part of it [was] realising that a lot of comedians are male or Caucasian and I started to think that there was an opportunity there."

Duong's prize includes $1500 plus a $1000 workshop for her school, and she was presented with the giant cheque by comedian Hannah Gadsby, who was also one of the judges.

"When she came up on stage and called my name I said I was a big fan and she said now, 'I'm a fan of yours too' and I almost died."