鈥淭he UC sport coaching team is awesome and there are helpful tutors too with lots of experience. Class sizes are small enough that you get to know everyone and can ask questions. UC鈥檚 lab and gym facilities are also very well set up with top quality equipment and technology.鈥
Luke says completing a 120-hour practical component for his undergraduate degree was a real highlight. The Selwyn United striker put in the hours required for that part of his degree with his old football club, Cashmere Technical, as a coach and First Kicks coordinator on Saturday mornings.
鈥淥ther opportunities outside the classroom were made available too, such as off-campus trips to Science Alive to explore sport science topics.鈥
Alongside his interest in sport coaching, Luke has a passion for teaching that he is now honing as he completes a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning (Primary Teaching) at UC. He aims to start working as a primary school teacher next year so he can unlock potential in the classroom as well as on the sports field. In his first teaching placement, he was delighted to accept an opportunity to coach Year 7 and 8 boys鈥 football for a winter sport competition and carried that on beyond the end of the placement. He says this was an invaluable experience.
鈥淲ith my Bachelor of Sport Coaching, I could readily combine teaching with being a sports coordinator in a school 鈥 I鈥檝e got the ideal grounding for that now. With the way UC allows cross-crediting, I could potentially head into secondary teaching/PE coaching too if I wanted by adding a few more papers.鈥
Luke plans to enrol in master鈥檚 papers in primary teaching at UC this summer to further hone his teaching qualifications.
