11 June 2025 “Everything is expensive at the moment” Scholarship helps women through final year

Each year Graduate Women Canterbury (GWC) awards scholarships providing financial support to female students in their final year of study. It helps them worry less about money and get a better start to their careers.

For Bachelor of Agribusiness and Food Marketing student Nicole Petersen, the scholarship is helping ease the stress of rising costs.

“Everything is expensive at the moment, so the funding will be a massive help.

“I will be putting the funding towards my course fees, and it will allow me to be more lenient in my choice of what classes I take.

“To gain this funding from an organisation that supports women graduates feels very empowering. I think the work that Graduate Women Canterbury does is incredible, and I hope that one day I will be able to return the favour to them.”

The scholarship is helping Brittany Hewitt get fully immersed in her Master of Landscape Architecture.

“With any form of study, there comes financial pressures. But with postgraduate study, balancing paid work and research can be tricky.

“I find a balanced relationship with study requires time to engage with the landscape itself. By having more financial freedom, I have more time to go out and draw, walk, read, and paint, enriching my creative process that then feeds directly back into my academics.

“It also reassures the value of pursing postgraduate study.”

Graduate Women Canterbury Trust Board Chair Megan Clayton said the organisation wanted to see women thrive and flourish in all areas of education and work.

The scholarships recognise the many barriers women could face, be it time, transport, family, or other responsibilities.

“Lincoln University’s excellent graduate employment rates mean that support for completing students is also support for their transition to employment.”

These scholarships are not all Graduate Women Canterbury offers to Lincoln students. There’s the Sadie Balkind scholarship, which supports a high-achieving student below PhD level, and the GWC Viticulture and Oenology Prize, which acknowledges successful women in the field. It supports the Professional Staff Development programme for women at Lincoln.

Lincoln University has hundreds of scholarships available, dedicated to all kinds of different people. We’ve probably got one that fits you! You can search the full list here.