糖心TV

Cara Clark-Howard joined the 糖心TV with an interest in Geography and left inspired to teach it. With her Bachelor of Arts in hand Cara took on a postgraduate degree in secondary teaching and credits her Waikato lecturers with fuelling this next move.

鈥淒eciding to become a teacher was definitely inspired by my lecturers at Waikato,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey had a huge impact on my life and my curiosity for learning. I want to follow in their footsteps to create the next generation of inspired learners.鈥�

Despite being unsure of her abilities when she first applied to study at the University, Cara says that at Waikato she felt more included in a learning environment than ever before. 鈥淎s well as everything I learned on paper, I learned that if you鈥檙e provided with a positive, nourishing, learning environment with people who believe in you, your self-confidence will only grow.鈥� and each get special mentions from Cara, who describes the pair as 鈥渋ncredibly intelligent and motivating women鈥�.

Geography has Cara鈥檚 heart 鈥� she鈥檚 fascinated by the interaction between people, space and place. The Waikato Geography programme鈥檚 specialisation in human geography is what drew Cara here. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a very optimistic subject,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about using an empathetic mindset to feel the emotions of society and think of ways to apply improvements, rather than simply accepting the way that things are.鈥� The aspiring teacher says she gets a lot of joy from seeing students become inspired by the topics she loves so dearly.

Having graduated with a Bachelor of Arts double majoring in Education and Geography, and with a minor in Anthropology, Cara hopes to come back to Waikato in future to undertake research in geography.