Year 13 St Paul’s Collegiate School student Alastair Blackett is off to Otago University next year to study commerce (majoring in accounting and finance).
The university are helping him out with his fees thanks to an Alumni Appeal Entrance Scholarship which will cover $6000 of course related costs during his first year of undergraduate study.
The 18-year-old says he always had his eyes on Otago and that being awarded the scholarship is a huge bonus and a “big confidence builder.”
He says he looked into scholarship options on the university’s website to find out what he was eligible for when he stumbled across the Alumni Appeal Entrance Scholarship.
Alastair’s success was mostly a solo effort – he put in a lot of hard yards writing his scholarship application and ensuring he achieved a well-rounded portfolio of academic success, leadership experience and extracurricular involvement.
The boarding student is head of Sargood and a full school prefect, achieved NCEA Level 2 endorsed with Merit, was captain of St Paul’s 1st XI cricket team, volunteered his time at decile one primary schools and the list goes on. You name it, Alastair has probably done it.
St Paul’s helped him with the finishing touches for his application by proving testimonials and proofreading.
The thing he is looking forward to the most about Otago is specialising in a topic that he really enjoys.
“I am good at accounting and I’m interested in numbers and working with people to get to the end goal. Being able to focus on one area and specialise will be good.”
This year he has taken NCEA Statistics, Economics, PE, English and Accounting.
