EIT’s recent graduation was a twofold celebration for Napier couple Cory Casbolt and Sonja Gugich.
Capped on the first day with his Bachelor of Computing Systems, Cory returned to Napier’s Municipal Theatre the following day to see his fiancée awarded her Bachelor of Recreation and Sport degree.
A huge enthusiast of an EIT education, Cory points to how it has improved his own life. Although he found tertiary study a challenging three years, not least because son Lucas was born while the couple were still studying, it has channelled him into a job he loves, working as a network administrator for school furniture manufacturer Furnware New Zealand.
Growing up in Hastings and living now in Napier, Cory lost interest in study when he was in seventh form. Keen to earn money, he went on to work in local orchards for the next three years.
Injured playing football for Western Rangers, he needed surgery and had to take six months off work. He used that time to reflect on what he wanted to do with his life.
“I knew how to work hard,” he says, “but decided I wanted to start using my brain a bit more. I wanted to earn more – that was a biggie.”
Four years out of school, Cory felt rather daunted about launching directly into degree study. So he enrolled in EIT’s Diploma in Information and Communications Technology, reasoning that this would at least give him the tertiary qualification after a year.
Finding the diploma study “not easy, but do-able”, he then cross-credited into the degree programme.
In the first semester of his final year he shared an IT management course with his future boss, Furnware’s group manager information systems Robert Merwood, who was enrolled in EIT’s Postgraduate Diploma in Information Technology programme.
That contact led to Cory taking on the Bachelor of Computing Systems’ internship at Furnware and, at the end of that, the offer of a permanent full-time position.
“The scope of the job and the growth potential were so good,” the 25-year-old says of the Hastings-based company. “They’re also great to work for. In my final semester, I still had a further course to complete the degree and Furnware was really accommodating about that.”
Cory is also impressed with EIT. Feeling settled in Hawke’s Bay, he welcomed the opportunity to study locally. He rates the computing school’s “state of the art” equipment, committed teaching staff and the comparatively small classes.
“You get to know the lecturers quite well. I think you’re more of a number at university, a face in a lecture theatre. At EIT, they’re always there to answer your questions and they know you all by name. It really struck me, the level of personal interest in your learning.”
Cory says he’d recommend EIT to anyone.
“It’s more than just a polytech, it’s got a lot to it. It’s given me the base to better myself and get up the career ladder. It was three years well spent.”