It still hasn’t really sunk in for former Waimea College dux, Brittany Dick, who has been selected for a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship and will head to the University of Oxford this year.
Until recently, only one person was selected from New Zealand each year for the scholarship which is considered one of the most prestigious programmes in the world, and even now Brittany is one of just three Kiwis to be selected this year.
As a descendent of Kāi Tahu, she is also just the fourth Māori to be selected since the scholarship programme was established in 1903. While academic excellence is one of the selection criteria, the selection panel, which in New Zealand is chaired by Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro, also looks for exceptional character, leadership and commitment to solving humanity’s challenges.
“It’s pretty insane,” she admits. “It really still hasn’t sunk in, and I don’t know if it will. It’s just so exciting and I’m so passionate about what I’m studying.”
When she left school at the end of 2015 she intended to have a six-month gap in England before beginning university studies, but it turned into three years where she worked as a chef and then an area manager for a series of stores in central London. She’s thankful for those experiences before beginning a Batchelor of Arts in Historical Forces, Arts and Literature from Minerva University in San Francisco. Though it’s based in San Francisco, her studies took her in seven different countries around the globe, working with communities as part of the degree, including the complex issues surrounding homelessness.
“We moved countries every semester. It was a special experience; we had a lot of engagement with different cultures.”
At the end of each year, Brittany headed home to Tasman and back-to-back winters, where she worked to earn money for the following year of studies. Her grandmother, Myra Dick, says the dedicated student would work up to five jobs at a time on her ‘summer break’ and she is incredibly proud of her success.
“I think she’s Christmas! Probably because she is my only granddaughter, she is my number one.”
Brittany heads to Oxford in England in September, where as a Rhodes Scholar she will complete a Master of Philosophy in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.
Then it will be back to New Zealand where she wants to put her studies to use. She already has considerable experience working with communities, having worked as a youth advisor to the office of the Children’s Commissioner on issues concerning Māori tamariki. Later, she helped develop procedures for organising and running vaccination clinics to vaccinate hard-to-reach Māori whānau in Te Tauihu, and right now she is working locally for the Māori health provider, Te Piki Oranga
“I feel very honoured to be able to go and study at a place like Oxford and bring it back to New Zealand. It’s a whole group of people wanting to improve their local communities.”
She heads to Oxford in the same year that it is honouring the first Māori woman to study at the university, Mākereti Papakura, who died in 1930, just weeks before completing her thesis on customs of her people from a female perspective.
Mākereti’s degree will be awarded posthumously later this year and 95 years after her time at Oxford.
