Enrolling in her degree at 17, Melanie Davis wrote essays on an electronic typewriter: the internet was yet to touch most lives.
Thirty years later, she graduated as an adult learner, studying primarily online as a solo mum while working full-time.
The 48-year-old now has a Bachelor of Social Sciences from Waikato, majoring in psychology and education studies. She has also gained “a massive sense of accomplishment.”
It remained an emotional topic, she said.
“Anytime I even thought about graduation, I felt like I was going to cry.”
Leaving Te Kūiti High School in seventh form, Melanie had no clear plans. So, she enrolled in her degree soon afterwards, studying part time due to work commitments.
“I wasn’t the greatest student. My supermarket hours became more and more, and my study became less and less.”
After a relationship break-up, she went to England and “just ignored it.”
She was two papers away from completing her degree. She nannied and studied childcare management instead.
Eventually she feared that the university would apply penalties, because it had been so long.
“Life got in the way. I just put my head in the sand for so long; I just thought it was going to be too hard to deal with. [One of] those things in life, you build them up to be a lot worse than they are.”
The incomplete degree would not go away, however.
“Every time I had a job interview, because it was in my CV as something that was uncompleted, it was always a little bit shameful for me. Well, shameful might not be the right word, but it was something that I wasn’t proud of.
“It would always keep coming up because it was something I didn’t want to leave off my CV, but it was not finished.
“I ended up having a family. I’m a single mum and I’ve got a 12-year-old boy now.
“It’s the fear of not quite knowing how to move forward. You’ve got all these other life commitments.
“It gets scary.”
Then things changed.
Working at the Taumarunui Community Kōkiri Trust, Melanie’s “amazing” manager said to her: “Let’s see what we need to do, to get this done for you. If it’s something you want.”
So, they made enquiries. Any penalties the university may have imposed were gone by 2023, they discovered. And if she did a further two papers, she would graduate with a double major – which she did. And she learned she was a different kind of student.
“I got As. [It was] just amazing the difference I had in priorities as an adult learner.
“I just got more motivated. I was working full-time … working into the evening and the weekends. It was a huge time commitment.
The online papers worked well with Melanie’s busy life and full-time work.
“You can go on at times that suit you and watch lectures and do tutorials … it’s all online, which it never was when I first started. I don’t think I’d even been onto the web [in 1993].”
New Zealand’s first international internet connection opened at the University of Waikato in 1989, while mainframe connections had linked the country since the late 1970s.
Still, when Melanie started studying, most people did not have computers at home.
Things had changed a great deal over the decades in terms of students’ access to technology.
“Being able to do everything remotely was just incredible.”
With “the beauty of hindsight,” Melanie realised she should have done it years earlier.
The new degree does not impact Melanie’s job, at Waitomo Waipā Women’s Refuge, but it is a plus for her career generally.
“A lot of workplaces like you to have a tertiary qualification, so I’m more employable. I suppose it shows that I’ve got the perseverance. I haven’t got this unfinished thing on my CV anymore. [I have] got a completed degree.
“It’s never too late.”
She was now considering enrolling in a masters.
One of Melanie’s study motivations has been the presence of her son, Connor Borrell – a companion throughout her studies.
“He was so supportive of me … he’s a little superstar.”
Connor could not have been prouder of Melanie.
“I think it’s awesome. She worked pretty hard, really hard on this degree, and she got it,” he said.
At her graduation, he said he would like to go to university himself when he was older.
