25 September 2002 Scholarships a 'lifeline' to further education

Scholarships have been a lifeline for Timaru's Lucinda Roberston, former Deputy Head Girl at Craighead Diocesan School, who went on to Lincoln University to complete a first class honours degree in biochemistry and is now in the final year of a doctorate in the same field.

During her time at Lincoln Lucinda has won nine scholarships and awards and she freely acknowledges that without the financial support and encouragement that these have provided she would have quit at the end of her bachelor's degree.

Through the scholarships and maintaining an unextravagant lifestyle, Lucinda has managed to get through to the end of a PhD without a student loan.

"I'm a bit of a saver by nature and I also tend to keep my head in my books, so I haven't spent much money on extra-curricular activities over the years," she says.

"Also I was fortunate to have my mother help finance my first year at University. Since then I have managed to finance each subsequent year through my own efforts and with the support of scholarships and awards.

In her first year at Lincoln Lucinda won a William and Ina Cartwright Scholarship, then in 1997, 1998 and 1999 she won Lincoln University Summer Research Scholarships for projects in the Animal and Food Sciences Division. In 2000 she won a Freemasons' Postgraduate Scholarship, a Lincoln University Suffrage Centennial Postgraduate Scholarship and a Lincoln University Fund for Excellence Award. Later that year Lucinda was awarded a Top Achiever Doctoral Scholarship. These are administered by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and recognised as the most highly contested and sought after awards in the university system.

This year Lucinda has added to the list with a Travel Award from the Canterbury Branch of the Federation of University Women. This award contributed towards attending an important international conference in the United States on vision and ophthalmology research, which had sessions relevant to Lucinda's research field of enzyme influences on cataract formation. All the top eye scientists in the world were there.

Lucinda's PhD work, under Lincoln University biochemists Dr Jim Morton and Professor Roy Bickerstaffe, is poised to make a major contribution to the understanding of the processes involved in the formation of cataracts.

"Without the help of my scholarships – both the Lincoln ones and the external awards – I definitely would not have started on a PhD," says Lucinda. "I would probably have finished after my honours year.

"Being awarded the scholarships persuaded me to further my education and having come this far I'm not going to give up now," she says, with hopes of post-doctoral work ahead.

Eventually she would like to combine university teaching and research.

"Lincoln values the provision of scholarships, bursaries, prizes and awards provided for its students by personal benefactors, external funding agencies, commercial enterprises, professional and learned bodies and other sources," says the University's Scholarships Manager, Kent France.

"Lucinda's story illustrates just how important these can be in helping and encouraging students to pursue their education.

"With the high cost of education these days, scholarships are attracting more and more attention from students and their parents.

Lincoln has some 250 scholarships on its books, of varying value and application criteria. All the discipline areas the University teaches in are covered and a number are provided by the University itself, at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

For example, Lincoln University funded Entrance Scholarships pay first year fees and Lincoln University Sports Scholarships in Rugby, Cricket, Netball, Hockey and Table Tennis pay fees for the duration of a degree so long as the scholars pass everything each year.

Lincoln's most valuable undergraduate scholarships are known as the Lincoln University Scholarships for excellence and these pay fees plus $4000 in cash each year for the duration of top students' degree courses.

There are also profession and industry related scholarships such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand Prizes and Scholarships and various prizes and scholarships in computing such as the JADE Prize and the Insite Technology/Philips NZ Applied Computing Scholarship.

Scholarships originate in many different ways – the wish to preserve a connection with an institution, for example Lincoln University's JMH Tripp Agricultural Scholarship, established in memory of the founder of Canterbury's Orari Gorge Station: the aim of encouraging students to pursue a particular course of study with a view to boosting the pool of graduates available to an industry, for example the NZ Dairy Industry Undergraduate Scholarships; and the wish to encourage the pursuit of academic excellence at the highest level, for example Lincoln University's Graduate and Doctoral Scholarships.

Scholarships Manager Kent France encourages prospective students thinking of studying at Lincoln to take the time to find out about scholarships that may be available and appropriate to them and to make sure they apply.

Scholarships are set up for all sorts of purposes, not just top academic performance, he says.

"In my experience too many students miss out on the opportunity to receive a scholarship because they don't have the confidence to apply. It really is a matter of the old story – 'you have to be in to win'."

At Lincoln University about 10% of students hold scholarships of one sort or another.