EMPOWER

So you’re an aspiring power engineer – what’s that?!

It’s someone who works somewhere along the power grid, anywhere from generation to distribution to sales. I had originally wanted to do natural resource engineering but I decided to give this a go and ending up liking it!

You’ve been up to some pretty exciting things at UC, can you share some highlights?

In my first year I took a bunch of extra papers in Te Reo Māori, commerce and politics. For one of the commerce papers I took in second year, I got to go on a management trip to China. About thirty of us went to a university for a few weeks and then visited all these different businesses. It was the most crazy, surreal thing – but really awesome! I met some of my best friends on that trip.

What did that lead to back home?

I became involved with Global China Connection (GCC), first as events associate and then later as president. That role was basically like leading a business and managing a team. It was an incredible opportunity to gain new skills and an experience I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else.

Sounds like it could be helpful down the track in your career too!

Absolutely. In fact, when I applied for my first engineering internship they never asked for my grades or transcripts. They were much more interested in hearing about my experiences with GCC. I’ve found that most employers want to hear about who you are as a person, which is a relief because I am not an A+ student!