Ashburton College Year 13 student Diana Barbu, heading off to New Zealand’s prestigious Powering Potential event for the country’s top science students. Photo Sue NewmanAshburton College student Diana Barbu will remember her Year 13 year as one where opportunities just kept on coming.

She won a place on a mid-year four-week international X-Lab science camp in Germany, one of just two New Zealanders among the 40 strong group, and next month she will be part of a Powering Potential event for science students in Wellington.

Add to that a scholarship for a German study programme and it’s been a huge year.

Barbu applied for the Powering Potential event last year, missed out, and was determined to win a place in Year 13.

Place secured, she says she’s excited about the opportunity to spend three days mixing with like-minded students and being mentored by scientists and PhD students.

“It’s different to anything else that’s offered because it’s not about lectures. We’ll be working in teams of five on a given scientific problem or issue that’s facing New Zealand,” she said.

With plans for a career in bio-medical science, Barbu said she’s excited by her study topic, obesity and diabetes.

The Powering Potential event involves students researching, investigating and then working collaboratively to provide recommendations from their findings.

To be selected each student was required to submit an in-depth application and video focused on their science strengths and how they have contributed to an area of science in their school or community.

Students were selected because they were serious about going on to study science at a tertiary level and had demonstrated a passion for science.

Barbu said that opportunities such as X-Lab camp and Powering Potential were exciting because students with the same passion were able to work together.

‘I’ve gone out of my way to seek out opportunities and this will be a really intensive three days because we’re so like-minded, we’re all so interested in and serious about science.”

Maths was her first love, but at college, her focus changed and this year she’s studied physics, chemistry, calculus, statistics and German.

Time out at X-Lab mid-year meant too much catch up work was needed to sit scholarship exams in anything other than German.

Next year Barbu will study health science but hopes to be able to keep up her German language studies as well.

Like many students, she’s applied for several scholarships and counts herself fortunate to have picked up an academic excellence scholarship from Otago University, one of the most valuable on offer.

It’s worth $35,000 – $15,000 next year and $10,000 for the following two years.

She was also the inaugural winner of MP Andrew Falloon’s local STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) scholarship.

Add to those scholarships, money saved from working as a lifeguard at the EA Networks Centre pools and Barbu said she is relieved to be looking at first year study without a student loan.

In wrapping up her years as a student at Ashburton College, Barbu won year 13 awards for German and statistics.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 23 November 2018