Jessica Petersen Alumni 1996

Jessica Petersen was at Kristin between the years of 1992 and 1996. She recalls when she started “We had horses in the paddock next door, not houses! It has completely changed. Compared to now, it was a relatively little country school, not the large campus it is now.”

Perhaps it was her enduring memories of Kristin Geography field trips, “usually experienced in the cold and wet,” which prepared her for things to come and moulded her interest in the environment and natural disasters.

“I started a Environmental Planning degree the year after I left school, but ended switching to a BA in History. After a few years working at a Non Government Organisation (NGO) I have now also finished my MA in Development Studies, graduating with first-class honours which has been very satisfying.

During this time I looked at a migrant community in Papua New Guinea and their experiences of two volcanic eruptions. I spent a month in Papua New Guinea doing the research and conducting interviews. The volcano was still active so I had a little taste of what it must have been like for the community when the action started happening!

In the future I’d like to work on disaster preparedness measures with communities at risk from natural hazards, mainly in the Pacific and Asia but also here in New Zealand. I’d also like to go to Argentina to learn Spanish.”

It has obviously been an exciting career so far for Jessica which is reflected in her advice for our students: “You will end up doing things in your life that you never even dreamed possible when you were at school, so do the things you enjoy the most.”

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