James Griffin – maximising a competitive advantage
I n his first three years at Christ’s College, the winner of the 2022 Wacher Prize for Academic Head of School, James Griffin, worked hard. However, in his final two years, he committed himself fully to academic life. This meant forgoing hockey, where he played for the 1st XI, and being highly disciplined about studying at night after busy and lengthy days packed with school and co-curricular activities. Despite Covid-19 and all its disruptions to classroom learning, he found the two-year- plus experience advantageous in helping to structure his studies, gain self-knowledge, and achieve his goals. “The Covid-19 pandemic and the level of independence that came with online learning helped me understand how I operated as a student,” he says. “It gave me a taste of university life and I had to develop a different academic mindset to being in regular school.”
He describes being named 2022 Dux as a thrill and an honour. Science-oriented, but also Head of the Chapel Choir and a keen musician, James is excited but not overawed about his 2023 Health Sciences studies at the University of Otago. “I feel I’m going to have more scope to do my own thing, and I know that the habits and structures I’ve made for myself at College work and will be very transferable in the future.” Competitive from birth, James has always found himself “making competitions out of nothing”. “I’ve found that competition, as well as intrinsic self-motivation, work very well together.” And he has thrived in the atmosphere of excellence found within College. A pupil at Sumner School and then Medbury School, James says the initial step up to College is a big one.
“I found the people who were the smartest at my old schools weren’t necessarily so at College,” he says “The quality and the standard here was that much higher, and, for me, it involved developing a sudden mindset of putting more effort in.” The regime James followed during the holidays or weekends was to structure his study as a normal school day, which allowed him to apply himself in a working, structured manner. At Arana College in Dunedin – where his grandfather stayed before him – there will be many other College boys, but James has no problem making new friends. “I’ve found that competition, as well as intrinsic self- motivation, work very well together.”
10
MOTIVATION
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online