Bachelor of Recreation Management (Community Recreation major) graduate

Portfolio Manager, Public Health Group, Ministry of Health

Emma Hodgkin wanted a sports career but wasn’t interested in becoming a PE teacher.  “Being able to do a course that is a mix of sport and recreation as well as business and commerce was appealing as I felt that it would give me broader career opportunities in the end.”

With a real passion for recreation as a means to improving health and wellbeing, she decided on Community Recreation as a major.  “This allowed me to look at recreation and sport from a holistic and community perspective, looking more at how our surroundings impact on our health and wellbeing.”

Emma is now working as Portfolio Manager in the Public Health Group of the Ministry of Health.  The Public Health Group is responsible for the planning and funding of services not currently funded by District Health Boards (DHBs). 

“We plan and fund services to promote, protect and improve population health and services that prevent ill health and minimize the risk of disease and injury through population based interventions. To achieve these outcomes we work closely with DHBs, other government and non-government agencies.”

Emma says there were a lot of things she loved about her degree at Lincoln, one of them being the practical work component.  “The practical work was excellent – it enhanced my practical experience, giving me a good understanding of the sector but also helped to build networks and relationships with potential employers.”

Adding to this, she says: “Attending a small university, in a relaxed learning environment, really helped me settle into my studies and helped with the transition from school to university.  I think my experiences would have been very different had I chosen to attend a large urban university.”

“Being able to take a range of classes across the streams was great, it gave me a good grounding in a number of areas.”

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