Study leads to a great job for horticulture grad

Media release: Study leads to a great job for NorthTec horticulture graduate in Kerikeri

NorthTec graduate Shelley Cooke has realised her dream of turning her studies into employment with a new full-time job at a Kerikeri nursery.

Shelley completed Horticulture level 2 at NorthTec and tried to find work locally before enrolling on the level 4 Horticulture programme with NorthTec this year. Once she had started her level 4 programme a job did come up but Shelley decided to continue with her studies.

While on the NorthTec programme Shelley’s class visited Tom Lindesay and Julia Colgan’s business Kerikeri Plant Production. A thank you letter from Shelley is still up in the workroom at the nursery which ends with a sentence that turned out to be more than a little prophetic.

Shelley wrote “...who knows which of us you will see next”. Two months later she found herself working at the nursery as Tom and Julia’s newest employee.

Shelley is one of a team of four workers at the business. “It’s brilliant! It’s feeling really good being employed,” said Shelley. “Natives are my passion and this is a really nice working environment.”

Shelley says that her studies this year are proving very helpful. “I’m really glad that I did the horticulture level 4 qualification and I will complete it around my work commitments. It’s helped me to formalise the knowledge that I already had.”

With her own four children now grown up Shelley is looking to the future. “I’ve found myself and a new job. I’ve enjoyed my studies immensely and now I have a new job. I really feel like my life has turned around. I should have done it ten years ago!”

Shelley’s advice to anyone contemplating study in 2011 is simple. “Just do it!”

NorthTec is the Tai Tokerau (Northland) region's largest provider of tertiary education, with campuses and learning centres in Whangarei, Kerikeri, Rāwene, Kaikohe and Kaitaia. NorthTec also has over 60 community-based delivery points from Coatesville in rural Rodney to Ngataki in the Far North.

ENDS

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