Canterbury Uni’s largest graduation week begins
After years of lectures, stacks of essays and countless nights in the library, over 2700 students are gearing up for University of Canterbury’s (UC) biggest graduation week to date.
Up to 1500 of the graduates are expected to march through the city today during UC’s annual street parade before Ōtautahi Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger addresses them.
Among those donning the cap and cloak is Alicia Smith, 21, who will be only the second non-American student to receive an international space research award.
Smith will be graduating with a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours, majoring in Mechanical Engineering and minoring in her passion – aerospace engineering.
“As a kid I thought it was incredible that we have this universe around us that we haven’t explored and there’s so many things we don’t understand about it,” she said.
Smith has since set her eyes on the stars and with a job secured at Rocket Lab – a global leader in launch and space systems – she’s well on the way to travelling among them.
Near the top of Smith’s long list of achievements while studying is winning a Distinguished Undergraduate Award from the Universities Space Research Association.
She said it was “pretty crazy” to be the second non-American student to take home the international award, which comes with a US$5000 scholarship.
“I counted myself out because your up against all of these people from all of these pretty top-tier research institutes from the US and across the world.”
The space-enthusiast also put UC on the map in her final year, taking the Aerospace Club’s team to victory in New Mexico at the Spaceport America Cup – “probably the world’s biggest university-level rocketry competition”.
With Smith’s leadership, her team’s rocket made it the closest to an altitude of 30,000 feet and was successfully recovered with minimal damage.
“We were lucky enough and dedicated enough to come away with the win in our category, so that was another pretty incredible moment for this little team from New Zealand.”
Although they had about 10 people in the team compared to the hundreds-strong American groups they placed third overall in the competition.
Reflecting on her university years, Smith noted behind her achievements lies a huge amount of physical and mental effort.
“I used to spend every day at uni, no matter what, and it was often 16 hour days or pulling all nighters. It was gruelling, and it definitely took a toll.”
During her university years Smith’s mother also passed away which she said had a huge effect on her ability to study and “changed who I am as a person”.
“Retrospectively I think I could’ve still achieved most of the goals I set out for and been able to take a few more weekends off and have a bit more fun – but I did have a lot of fun and I had really good friends.”
At Rocket Lab, Smith is glad to have more of a work-life focus despite a “boom in the aerospace industry in New Zealand” – and she’s still set on her original vision.
“Definitely the end goal would be seeing more Kiwis in space or just seeing more Kiwi hardware and software orbiting earth, or further beyond.”
Graduation ceremonies started yesterday are held until tomorrow at Wolfbrook Arena. The Pasifika and Māori celebration’s will be held at the Rata Engineering Core and Ngā Hau e Whā Marae respectively.