Megan Dodunski is ready to wrap up warm for Christmas in China.
Megan Dodunski is ready to wrap up warm for Christmas in China.
Megan Dodunski is swapping a traditional New Zealand Christmas for a very different experience this year.
Instead of hanging out with family and friends in Taranaki, Megan will be spending the festive period in China.
Megan is one of two WITT Te Pūkenga business management ākonga (students) to have been awarded a Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia (PMSA). She and fellow Taranaki recipient Hannah Bryan are two of 15 ākonga from throughout Aotearoa New Zealand to have been selected for the scholarship programme, which includes a four-week entrepeneurship and innovation course complete with Chinese-language classes. During that time ākonga will be based in Jinhua, a city in the central Zhejiang province in eastern China. They will then spend a further two weeks visiting cities near Jinhua for a range of cultural experiences.
Costs, including flights, fees, insurance and visas, are all covered by the New Zealand Government, says Megan.
“It’s an opportunity I couldn’t have taken without the funding. It’s a really great experience I am being offered through this scholarship.”
Megan says applying for the scholarship was a bit of a last-minute decision.
“I actually only saw the email advertising it a couple of days before applications closed. I spoke to mum about it and decided to apply. When I got the interview I was pleased, but then didn’t think I had done well in the interview so was really surprised to have got it.”
It’s an opportunity Megan truly deserves, says WITT Te Pūkenga business tutor Phillipa Watt.
“Megan deserves this awesome opportunity. Her academic work is always of a very high standard and demonstrates her ability to see ‘the bigger picture’, so this experience will certainly contribute to her global perspective — invaluable in today’s business environment.”
Megan Dodunski will spend six weeks in China thanks to a Prime Minister's Scholarship for Asia.
Megan, who is working towards a Level 5 Diploma in Business with a plan to complete a Bachelor of Accounting, says there are plenty of career opportunities for business and accounting students.
“There are so many options and career opportunities in business and accounting, I think it’s a really good starting point.”
Megan, who attended Ngaere Primary and Stratford High, says she moved to WITT halfway through Year 13.
“I felt I had learned what I needed to learn at high school by then. I had Level 2 NCEA and wanted a fresh challenge so I moved to WITT for my studies.”
Although she moved to WITT for her studies, Megan didn’t move out of home, saying by living at home and working part time — at Countdown Stratford — she is able to avoid a large student loan.
“It’s certainly helpful in reducing costs.”
With just a few weeks left before she flies to China in early December, Megan is busy finalising her travel details and trying to get to grips with it all.
“We have a group chat, all of us going, so we are getting to know each other, and we are also in touch with some ‘study buddies’, Chinese students there we have been teamed up with. They know some business English so we can communicate a bit, plus we use WeChat to talk online and that has a translation feature. I have been trying to learn a bit of Mandarin in advance, but am juggling that with study and work, so it’s slow progress.”
Before this trip, Megan had been overseas only once, and that was to Perth for a family wedding.
“So this is certainly a whole new experience. I know it is going to be cold, and everything is going to be very different, but it’s a great opportunity to learn so much and to experience a totally different culture. I am looking forward to it.”
