Adam Ryland is a practical man. He’s always liked finding out how things work, so when it came to choosing his career– engineering was an obvious choice. 

Adam started with a pre-trade course before moving on to complete his New Zealand Diploma in Engineering (Mechanical). He says Otago Polytechnic was an obvious choice.  “I get worldwide recognition with this diploma, that really helped with my decision to come here”.

Adam says he searched around to find what careers were available before he chose to come to Polytechnic. That decision has certainly paid off, he’s now a services engineer at Milmeq (they design, engineer and manufacture equipment for primary food processing).

Adam started a cadetship with Milmeq while he was still studying. His boss liked the style of education he was getting from Otago Polytechnic “I had an understanding of how the industry actually works, versus just the theory behind it”.

He says the study was a big step up from school, but there was excellent one-on-one tuition and plenty of support, so he soon got into the swing of life here.