Hands-On at Otago

During the school holidays in January, I had the amazing opportunity to go down to the University of Otago and experience a week on the campus at the programme Hands-On at Otago. 

There were about 400 students going into years 12 and 13 this year at the programme, each doing a range of different research projects from Law to Marine Biology to English, which was the project I took part in. We had our projects each morning, and in the afternoon, we had a taster session of the other courses, which were exciting and fun to get involved in.

In English, we learnt about medieval literature and got to go to the libraries in Dunedin and look at, learn about, and touch manuscripts from as many as 1000 years ago. We also learnt how to do calligraphy and make a book— a skill which I’ve managed to keep working on. These activities were what our professor called the fun day; she gave her students a few times a year, so it was great for us to be able to experience the best part of her course at Otago. 

My group only had 5 participants— small compared to some groups which had 15-20 students. This was good for us, as it gave us lots of time for us all to connect with each other and form relationships we still keep up with even now. 

A big part of the experience was also the ‘university life’. We stayed in Te Rangihiroa, one of the newer student accommodation buildings. Each night, we had a floor meeting where we got to meet more people outside of our project groups. We also had the task of coming up with a dance for the ‘Big Night Out’ celebration on our last night. This was reminiscent of Carmel Day and was really fun for us all to get involved in.

Hands-On was one of the best weeks of my summer, and while I did learn a lot academically, the biggest takeaways for me would have to be the relationships I made with all the incredible people I met and how much it helped me to grow personally. 

By Maya Timlin (year 12, Carmel College)