Getting a Kiwi education
Ace Simpson - Student story
Name: Ace Simpson | |
Ace Simpson isn’t letting the fact that he lives in India interfere with his pursuit of a kiwi education. Studying by distance with The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand means the former Wellingtonian will have the qualifications he needs when he returns home.
Currently based in Mayapur in West Bengal, Ace began his studies with The Open Polytechnic when he lived in Poland. “I first went to Poland in 1990. It was shortly after the fall of communism, and it was a euphoric time there,” says the 33-year-old.
“The Polish people wanted to learn about other cultures, but at the same time were quite wary of them, so some friends and I decided to organise cultural events to promote the values of racial and cultural tolerance, non-violence, environmental awareness, spirituality, and health and well being.”
The events proved popular, with the group eventually registering as a government recognised public benefit organisation called the Viva Culture Foundation. Although Ace has now moved on, each summer in cooperation with local city officials the Foundation organises around 60 cultural events with each draw a crowd of around 8,000 people. Helping to prepare for the events saw Ace travel to Africa, India, the USA and Europe to scout for talent.
His experiences with the Foundation fostered a desire to create self-development seminars and coaching programmes so that people could apply the messages they learnt from the cultural events. Feeling he was inadequately qualified, and not wanting to give up working at that stage, he investigated distance learning options.
In 1995 he enrolled with a British based provider, but in the days before the Internet and laptops were common, it proved too difficult to fit it around his lifestyle and he dropped out. Fast-track to 2004, and Ace discovered studying online with The Open Polytechnic offered the flexibility he needed. As a New Zealand national he qualifies for domestic study fees.
Moving to India last year, Ace is studying full-time towards a Bachelor of Applied Science with a double major in Psychology and Communication. “One of the factors that influenced my decision to enrol originally with just the Communication major was that most of the courses were available online. I would download all of the course material onto my hard drive and I could study anywhere at anytime. Often this meant on planes, in airport terminals, or in between events or meetings.”
Taking some Psychology electives online, he enjoyed them so much he changed to the double major. With a majority of those courses paper-based, Ace has relied on the Polytechnic’s Online Campus and emailing his tutors to keep in touch. “The Online Campus is invaluable for assignment submissions - I do not know what I would do if I had to rely on the Indian postal system – and the online web forums provide great support.”
“I’ve found the Polytechnic’s study materials clear and easy to understand, as well as up-to-date,” he says. There were challenges along the way for Ace, initially finding it hard to understand what was expected of him in assignments, but support from his lecturers helped him get over the bump. “I also took two papers that I believed helped me increase my grade average in assignments - Professional and Technical Writing, and Effective Writing. They gave a greater understanding and confidence in writing and presenting information.”
“I also really enjoyed Personality and Individual Differences which gave a great overview of various psychological theories and thus great insight into human psychology. On a more personal level, my wife Monika and I have been married for eight years and plan to have children in the near future, and taking Childhood and Adolescent Developmental Psychology gave me so much insight into effective parenting before actually becoming a parent,” he explains.
Ace says his studies have set him up for the future, helping to develop his critical thinking and presentation skills, ensuring he has the tools he needs for his goal of becoming a success coach and trainer.
Gaining maximum credit for his efforts, when Ace completes his degree studies this year he will also be able to cross-credit some of his courses to receive the Diploma in Communication Studies, the Diploma in Strategic Communication, and the Diploma in Organisational Psychology.
After that he intends to enrol at a New Zealand university to complete a Masters in Organisational Psychology before embarking on his goal of setting up his own consultancy.
