AN OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT FOR GEORGE FITZGERALD 2014 National Top Scholar in English
George Fitzgerald’s 100% mark in the 2014 NZQA Scholarship exams gave him the prestigious award of being New Zealand’s Top Scholar in English.
He also won an Outstanding Scholar Award, placing him in the top 70 students in New Zealand. This was for being awarded Outstanding Scholarships in both English and Geography as well as Scholarships in Biology and History. The journey to achieving the country’s highest mark in English began in Year 9 when George was put in the English extension group with a tutor who sparked his interest in the classics. “This really helped me look at literature in a different way and see it as something I could
put into my own life. It helped me to be able to look at the difference between knowledge and wisdom and use my knowledge in the real word,” he says. “But to get to where I have done I have had to do an enormous amount of preparation over the years. I enjoy English because it is not just rote-learning but gives you the opportunity for creative thinking, for using your knowledge to create an argument and to support opinions. “In English, you need a lot of accumulated knowledge and in Scholarship, any knowledge is
good knowledge, so I worked towards and focused mostly on Scholarship exams.’’ George says he is grateful to English Department teachers, who “have so much passion for what they are doing”. “They always tried to maximise my love of English and encourage me to read, to take part in external and internal writing competitions and they are part of the recent successes I have had.” George is currently in Dunedin at Otago University where he is studying Health Sciences leading
George Fitzgerald – 2014 National Top Scholar in English.
Christ’s College Canterbury
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