Bjarne Frederiksen

Bjarne gained hands-on experience at Digital Stream, a multi-media development company in Hamilton, while still completing his electronic commerce degree at Waikato.

They were so impressed that he was offered a full-time role at the company when he graduated.

“As a web developer, I’m building websites for most of the day,” says Bjarne. “When I’m not programming I’m working with web designers to re-create their designs in code, or speaking to customers to ensure we’re delivering what was promised, providing support and fixing website issues.”

“My job gives me a huge sense of accomplishment. When I finish a project I’ve got something tangible that I can show people; it looks really cool and it’s something to be proud of. People can use my websites and enjoy them.”

“I know my employer seeks graduates from Waikato because they not only have in-depth technical skills in e-commerce, but a good overall understanding of how businesses work too.”

Bjarne chose the BECom degree because he was interested in computers and information technology, and it looked like a good mix of papers.

With ambitions of becoming a web developer, he chose to do a three-month internship at Digital Stream for the industry experience paper MSYS219.

“Looking back, the industry experience paper was the most valuable thing I did during my degree, because it got me the job I have right now.”

The company gave Bjarne four or five websites they’d already finished for clients and asked him to recreate them from scratch. “They were essentially training me. Once I had completed those websites, I then started getting into client projects, and that led to a full-time job.”

“The first year of my degree was the most challenging, not because the papers were difficult but because I was still learning how I should study and what worked for me.”

In third year, Bjarne did a project management paper where the entire class went on a field trip to the Avantidome in Cambridge, and learnt all about how it was built. “That was really cool. I learnt heaps and there were some real-world applications to what we were learning.”

“I would recommend Waikato as a university because the campus and the atmosphere are second-to-none; it was amazing.”

“My advice to new students is to get involved in everything; whether it be playing sport, going to guest lectures, or events organised by Waikato Management School and the students’ association.”