Student Profile

Hi, Davin here, and I am pretty sure at this stage that I have passed enough so that they will let me out with my Masters in Applied Linguistics at the end of 2006. Seriously though, the whole course has been a blast.

I had spent ten years in Japan teaching English. I had my own school with about 50 students, and I was working in 4 other schools. It was pretty good money but truth be told, I had no clue what I was doing. I decided to pack up everything, do the Cert. ALT at Wintec and work here in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the bubble had long since slipped away and there were not many decent jobs. The people at Wintec suggested the Masters programme here and I have never looked back.

I did the Post Graduate Diploma in Second Language Teaching in this Department before doing the MA(Applied). I entered the PGDipSLT course with a million questions, and much to the horror of the staff, I proceeded to ask most of them. I guess I was the typical mature student that annoys all first year students. However, these were not first year classes; they were level seven papers which challenged all of us taking the course. The workload was heavy, and the marking very strict. It was difficult but not impossible to balance working, my new family, demands from friends and life with all that was demanded of us. However, there is a true feeling of accomplishment now and I know that I can be proud of gaining both qualifications.

The future right now looks great. I have a job at the University of Waikato Language Institute which is good because quite often people struggle to get jobs at the end of their degree programme. I found the CALL papers that I did through this Department really interesting and I am looking to branch out a little into E-learning and CALL through the Language Institute. It looks like they will support me as I try some new stuff. It will be very challenging. I am feeling very happy that I will still be on campus because I am sure to have a million more questions next year and will be battering down the doors in the Applied Linguistics department looking for answers. And they thought that they had gotten rid of me...

Now for those of you who are reading this, you know you should really be studying! However, if you are after a serious challenge that will open doors to you all over the world, then you are in the right place. With this Masters in Applied Linguistics degree, the world is your oyster, make the most of it.