After a year working in a supermarket, I decided to enrol at EIT to study the Diploma in Therapeutic and Sport Massage.

This is my first year of tertiary study.  I chose to study massage because I love working with people, and human anatomy is something I am very interested in.

Studying massage has been a great experience, especially working with my lecturers from whom I’ve learnt a lot.  My programme is only one year long.  Once I have finished, I would really like to work with athletes at sports events, to help them prepare and recover from competitions.

As well as studying full-time at EIT, I also do race walking.  Race walking is a sport, and athletes compete right up to Olympics level.  The rules for race walking are that one foot must be on the ground at all times, and the leg that is on the ground must be kept straight until that leg passes the body’s vertical position.

I currently compete in 3000m, 10km and 20km race walking events.  In March, I competed in the New Zealand athletics champs, breaking the New Zealand under-20 3000m race walk record (13m 36s).  My greatest achievement to date was in representing New Zealand in the world race walking team champs held in Rome last year.

I am very thankful to receive the sports scholarship from EIT and Sport Hawke’s Bay.  This has helped a lot financially with my studies.  I am really looking forward to the second half of my study programme this semester.

– Laura Langley