Tuesday 23rd June, some of our Pasifika Academy and STEM crew traded the school classroom for the lecture theatres and labs at the University of Waikato for the Feats of Excellence Fieldtrip. After completing five preparation workshops at school, it was good to finally step onto campus, catch a glimpse of what university life is like, and see the massive opportunities waiting for us out there.
One of the best parts of the day started right at The Pā, where we got to mix and mingle with other Pasifika tamaiti from different kura across the region. It felt awesome to be surrounded by so many other young Pacific learners all aiming high and exploring the same future pathways together.
We were incredibly lucky to hear from guest speaker Tyler Jahnke, who spoke to us about "Figuring out YOUR path to success." He challenged the idea that success is a straight line, showing us that it's actually full of twists and turns. Hearing this advice from someone who has navigated the tertiary system while staying grounded in his identity gave us a whole new perspective on our own journeys. His key messages really stuck with us:
Don't let your upbringing determine where you can go.
Breaking generational cycles is hard... But so is staying in the same cycle.
Never forget your village, or why you are here.
We got to dive into some awesome practical sessions that showed us just how diverse STEM and Health can be:
In the Engineering faculty, we put our problem-solving skills to the test by designing and building our very own functioning gumball machines. We then got analytical in the health lab comparing the actual fat content in different popular brands of chips. We visited the high-performance sport science facilities and got to test our physical limits through a bunch of competitive challenges, e.g. smash out max effort to test our pure power output on the Wattbikes as well as measure our explosive leg power with the vertical jump test and go head-to-head racing our peers in a lightning-fast reaction test using blast pods.
Seeing Pacific staff and students thriving on campus made the university feel like a place where we can belong. We walked away inspired, culturally grounded, and excited about the doors that are open to our people in science, engineering, and health.
We want to say a huge, heartfelt thank you to Aunty Monica Megan Fa'asu from the Waikato of University! Thank you for running all five of our workshops leading up to this and for organising such an amazing day on campus. We appreciate all the time, energy, and support you’ve poured into us to help us see what we are capable of.
