21 June 2010 Start scoring your life goals with Lincoln's CUP programme

It's not FIFA's World Cup but it is a winning opportunity to open the scoring on those educational goals in your life. It is Lincoln University's "CUP" programme, and CUP stands for Certificate in University Preparation.

"The CUP Programme is what it says it is," says the Acting Director of Lincoln University's Foundation Studies and English Language Centre, Cathy Early.

"It is a preparation for university study and qualifies you for entry to university. It does this in a supportive, non-threatening way and you work in small classes alongside people with ambitions similar to your own. It is designed to ensure that you can succeed at undergraduate level.

"The CUP programme runs over one semester, you study four courses - one of them compulsory {Integrative Study Skills) and three chosen from a list of six others."

When candidates have passed the programme they are eligible for full admission to any one of Lincoln University's undergraduate programmes. At Lincoln University, New Zealand's specialist land-based university, there is a wide choice of internationally recognised qualifications to choose from, such as in commerce, social science, agriculture, landscape architecture, viticulture and wine science, environmental management, and sport and recreation management.

There are three entry times for Lincoln University's CUP programme - February, July and November and applications are open now for the July intake.

"The CUP programme has much to offer candidates across the age spectrum," says Cathy ."That extends from mature students keen to get a formal university qualification, perhaps to 'future proof' their careers or to change direction completely, through to younger candidates folk, over the age of 18, who have left school without sufficient credits for entry to higher education. If they meet the entry requirements they too can come into the CUP programme and work their way towards admission to undergraduate study."

"We have seen the CUP programme change lives, and for anyone working in the education field that's as exciting as it is for the people whose lives are changed."

For further information about Lincoln University's CUP programme contact the Foundation Studies and English language Centre, Lincoln University, telephone {03) 3252811 ext 7664 or email foundation@lincoln.ac.nz