Jamie Wood
Ngāi Tahu
Bachelor of Commerce
When Jamie Wood's Dunedin school team won a Young Enterprise Scheme regional challenge she had her first taste of business success. More was to follow.
Jamie enrolled at Otago for a BCom in Accounting and International Business with a Māori and Pacific Island Entrance Scholarship.
“I'd heard the Otago Business School was great and it was. I also went to all the tutorials provided by the Māori Centre, and they were amazing. I'm sure they were an important factor in the grades I got in my first year.
“The social life was great too. I was president of the Māori Students' Association and loved meeting people and getting involved in clubs and volunteering. People skills are one of the most important things you learn at Otago.
“I'd really encourage people to try everything and anything they can, even things they're unfamiliar with, because you get so much out of them.”
Jamie added a minor in Chinese to her BCom and went on to win awards such as the R Turner Prize in Management and the prestigious Prime Minister's Scholarship in 2016.
“That was a huge support for my third year of study, which was an exchange year at Dalian University of Foreign Languages and travelling in China, followed by business study at Beijing's Tsinghua University. You get so many opportunities at Otago, and going on an exchange was one of the biggest for me.”
After graduating, Jamie completed an internship with Goldman Sachs and now plans to take a gap year to travel.
“It's all been a bit of a whirlwind since I got to Otago. University is not like school where everything is handed to you. Everything is there, but you have to go out and find it.
“Otago's great academically and socially. It has amazing lecturers, great facilities, great clubs, great extra-curricular activities – Otago ticks all the boxes.”