Return-to-school fears melted at Aoraki Polytech

Return-to-school fears melted at Aoraki Polytechnic open day

It’s a fear many adults face when they first entertain the notion of learning extra skills and gaining extra qualifications to better themselves and their jobs – how will they cope going “back-to-school”? Margaret Bruce knows the feeling. School-day memories of essays, classes and study periods left her wondering whether in her early forties she might be too old to enjoy that now.

But with support from her partner and children aged five and eight-and-a-half, Miss (crrct) Bruce found the desire for further education too strong to ignore and was drawn to an Aoraki Polytechnic open day a year ago.

“I walked in those doors and my fears just seemed to melt,” she said this week.

“I was treated so nicely by the staff. They made me feel special and that I mattered.” Now the Timaru woman is heading for a new career as a social worker having enrolled in a year-long Diploma in Social Services course in the Timaru institution.

And in what would become a springboard to a degree in the field, Miss Bruce found that her year-long polytechnic course took a year off an Otago University Bachelor in Social Work programme.

“This was huge for me,” she said.

“It actually made the degree achievable for me because doing the first year here [in Timaru] saved all that accommodation and travel money and kept me close to my family.” The second big surprise for Miss Bruce was discovering how many adult learners there were enrolled at Aoraki Polytechnic.

“I was quite amazed at the open day to see how many of us oldies there were.” She said having such a facility in Timaru made “a world of difference to working mums and those with school-aged children”.

Most of them couldn’t advance themselves if they had to move out of town to do it, she said.

Social work is a natural fit for Miss Bruce and she is looking forward to being able to practice in the South Canterbury community.

Moving here in 1992, she found it hard to forget all the memorable experiences she enjoyed in London while working as a nanny on her “OE”.

It was there that she decided that helping people in a community context was what she wanted to do. Social work was a logical course.

“Katie Wiseman’s [programme co-ordinator] course taught me to explore myself. She taught me to use myself as a tool.

“A social worker cannot be judgmental and as that was perhaps one of my failings, I had a lot to learn,” Miss Bruce said.

“Now I look into the mirror and I see a new me and it all started with an ‘open day’ sign outside the polytechnic.

“Just like that one behind me.” Aoraki Polytechnic will be holding this year's open day on October 21, from 12 to 4pm and from 5pm to 7pm.

ENDS

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