Scholarship success for SLC students
The latest recipients of the Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia (PMSA) have just been announced and the School of Languages and Cultures (SLC) is celebrating the success of its students.
The PMSA is an outbound scholarship programme that awards students who show the passion and ability to strengthen trade partnerships between New Zealand and Asia, improve the global identity of our education and workforce, and grow our relationships with neighbouring nations. Congratulations to this year’s deserving recipients: Matilda Gaby, Ethan Jones, Elliot Maddox and Nina Powles.
Matilda Gaby
A Bachelor of Science student, majoring in Development Studies with a Chinese minor, Matilda has an impressive academic record and won both a China-New Zealand Scholarship and PMSA, enabling her to study at Peking University in 2017. Her involvement in various community and extra-curricula activities, such as the Victoria Plus Programme and the Victoria International Leadership Programme, have inspired her to get more involved with internationally-focused volunteer roles.
Ethan Jones
Ethan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 2014, majoring in Chinese and Modern Language Studies. He then went on to study at one China’s top universities—Zhejiang University—on both China-New Zealand and PMSA scholarships. Ethan is a second time recipient of the PMSA and his goal is to master the Chinese language, so he can better engage with Chinese businesses and government, and be a valuable asset to the New Zealand workforce.
Elliot Maddox
Elliot is a Bachelor of Arts student, majoring in TSOL and minoring in Chinese and Japanese. In May 2016, he participated in The Chinese-Bridge Competition and won second place in the Wellington region competition. He then went on to represent New Zealand at the 2016 Worldwide Chinese Mandarin Speaking and Performance Competition. The PMSA scholarship will allow Elliot to continue studying and living in China in order to achieve greater fluency in Chinese language and obtain a much deeper understanding of Chinese people and their way of life.
Nina Powles
Nina’s collection of poems, Girls of the Drift, was published by Seraph Press in 2014 and won The Biggs Family Prize for Poetry in 2015. A former Bachelor of Arts student, majoring in Chinese and English, she completed an MA in Creative Writing with Distinction from Victoria this year. The PMSA will enable her to study Chinese for a further six months at Fudan University in Shanghai. Nina’s ambition is to become bilingual with sufficient competence in both oral and written Chinese to enable her to make contributions and connections between the creative innovation sectors of New Zealand and China.