Annaliese Bond’s stepping stone to a career path was studying for EIT’s Certificate in Science.
“If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to go on to study for a bachelor’s degree,” says the 24-year-old from Hastings.
Growing up in Havelock North, Annaliese left school before finishing her Year 13. Seeing a job at analytical testing laboratories as a foot in the door, she started by washing dishes and progressed to working in the chemistry lab.
Business started drying up, however, and the Hawke’s Bay branch closed down.
While she’d enjoyed the scientific nature of her lab work and considered studying viticulture, Annaliese had failed sixth form chemistry. She decided to improve her skills by enrolling for EIT’s Certificate in Science. She scored 100 percent in three of her four chemistry exams and while she puts that down to a good teacher and really good lab facilities, she also wanted to prove to her parents that she could achieve.
The expectation was that she’d finish school and study for a degree, she explains. And her older sister had set a high bar by qualifying as a nurse.
Annaliese started working a job as a caregiver but after several years decided that it wasn’t going to be her career. She returned to EIT to study for her Bachelor of Nursing.
“I felt nursing could take me anywhere around the world. It’s about caring for people, and I love doing that.”
The second-year degree student feels she has found her niche. She recently completed a five-week placement at a community mental health facility and didn’t want to leave.
“It’s exactly what I want to do in life. It just clicked. My main passion is to work in mental health. I want to make a difference with adolescents whose parents have mental health and addiction issues.”
Studying locally has been perfect, says Annaliese, who is living back at home while managing her studies and working parttime caring for a tetraplegic. Campus life has been welcoming, she says, and she has made some really good friends.
Looking back on the years after leaving school, she says: “A lot of us don’t know what we want to do and finding what that might be can be hard. I honestly thought I never would. Those two strands, science and nursing, if I hadn’t developed the science side I wouldn’t have got to where I am now.”