Paerua Tohu TauhokohokoMaster of Commerce—MCom

We put strong emphasis here at the Wellington School of Business and Government on the fact that we want people with a natural curiosity for something in their area of expertise. So, it's not that we're prescribing topics in these degrees. This is where you should bring in something that you deeply care about.

Kia ora, I'm Markus Luczak-Roesch. I'm the Academic Programme Leader for the Master of Commerce and the Bachelor of Commerce with Honours programmes.

The Master of Commerce and the honours degree are designed for people who want to do a research postgraduate education, so these are a little bit different from the professional programmes in the regard that they prepare people with research skills, so these are the skills that you need to design inquiry into open issues.

I decided to pursue a research-focused programme just because I prefer writing a thesis because they give you that flexibility and space where you can find a problem and you get to discover a topic that you're super interested in.

I decided to pursue the Master of Commerce because it's a way to sort of challenge myself. I'm sort of a naturally curious person. I enjoyed studying before that but I wanted to pick my own path. Being able to do research really allowed me to do that.

So my research topic, I looked at what organisations can do to integrate and welcome former refugees into their workplace, inclusion and diversity, and that's easier said than done. But, I was super interested in that topic because there's a lot of research out there that looks at what the issues are that former refugees have but not so much that focus on solutions.

I researched supply chain resilience for small business exporters in New Zealand during Covid. Because New Zealand's economy relies so much on small businesses I was really really interested in taking a look at how small businesses were doing resilience-wise during the pandemic. It was a challenge but it was also really really rewarding because it came at a time when I think this kind of research was needed.

The highlight of my studies is when the university organised a research showcase. That was pretty cool because they invited employers and other academics to come have a look at you present a poster on your research and it really comes to show you how a lot of people have research ideas that are super relevant to the world.

Research is a skill that is more than ever necessary in any career really. Policy makers do research every day and all day long so it's part of their skill set, it has to be the appropriate training for research, so in the policy space it's quite natural but also for companies doing market research, research is important.

This degree is designed for someone who wants to differentiate themselves straight at the start of their career. You usually transition into the honours or the MCOM programmes straight out of your undergraduate because you do an additional fourth year of study basically to specialise in your field and the differentiation is that you do an individual research project that only you do.

So only one student works on a project with a specific title. So choosing that wisely and working on something that really matters outside of this building, outside in the world, in the business world, in the governmental world, and also through society, makes a difference because that is what people can then put on their CV and that will differentiate them from someone else because no one else will have that title in their CV.