How studying communication and design at Wintec gave this creative storyteller the edge

Wednesday, 17 April 2024

Annika van Driel is the Communications and Events Coordinator at Seed Waikato and believes that businesses and communities can benefit from good quality storytelling.

When a Wintec recruitment team member made a visit to Fraser High School back in 2021, with the backdrop of the restrictive Covid world, Annika van Driel had her first thoughts about transitioning to tertiary study. Just one month on, she was enrolled to study a Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication.

On the back of lockdown, school just wasn’t the same says van Driel.

“They [Wintec recruitment team] happened to mention that there was a July intake.

“It was totally off the cards for me before that. I had an academic focus. I didn't realise you could go straight into being a tertiary student before finishing Year 13.”

van Driel opted to study the Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication after enjoying the process of working through her Level 3 Design board. She was drawn to developing graphics and seeing how visuals resonate and communicate with audiences.

“I just fell in love with graphic design and visual storytelling,” she says. “So, I just fell straight into it, Visual Communication. No thinking, just loved it from day one.”

Reflecting on her time at Wintec van Driel says that it was being in a creative space with other creative people that left a mark on her, as well working within a collaborative environment.

“It was an exercise of opening my mind to critique and you actually gain so much value from this process.”

Another highlight was being awarded the Prime Minister's Scholarship for Latin America and travelling with a group of students in January 2024 as her studies came to an end. It’s a scholarship for students to broaden their horizons through life-changing learning experiences. The scholarships cover the costs of the month-long trip, from programme fees, flights, visas, insurance, and a contribution towards accommodation and living costs.

"I think for me, going overseas after my study was always something that I had dreamed about.”

Travelling to Latin American was a homecoming of sorts.

“I am half Latin American, my Mum's Brazilian, and it was about bringing my identity together, taking ownership of who I am, where I come from, and understanding where my values come from, for me, it was empowering to discover this part of me is like that.”

By taking summer school papers over two years van Driel completed her degree by the age of 19 and during her final year of studying she got a job as a social media coordinator at the YWCA [Young Women’s Christian Association]. It was at this community organisation where she found a love for writing copy for social media that helped inform her choice to continue her studies towards a Graduate Diploma in Communication. She says having this graduate diploma made her stand out.

“It made me more marketable for the spaces that I want to be in— these small community organisations having big impacts.”

It paid off when the fixed term contract with YMCA finished just as van Driel interviewed for and secured the role of Communications and Events Coordinator at Seed Waikato.

“Because I had also just finished my communications graduate diploma, I could prove to them that I had those skills as well as the graphic design skills.”

van Driel believes that businesses and communities can benefit from good quality storytelling and wants to bring more value to community organisations.

“Because you know, one picture tells 1000 words, and I'm just passionate about bringing people together through design and storytelling” she enthuses.

Her new role at Seed Waikato will see her harnessing all the multidisciplinary skills she has gathered through her studies. She’s looking forward to sharing the story of Seed Waikato through communicating and connecting with their youth-focused community. The organisation is dedicated to planting seeds of change in the minds of people through education, community networking, workshops and relationship building, so that people can be empowered to make the change that they want to see in the world or the change that they want to see in their own lives.

It’s a true alignment of values for van Driel, who had goals of wanting to bring more value into community organisations and who had identified that great relationships between people with dynamic and purpose-driven work are the reason that she went to study design in the first place, “to connect with people and make a positive impact on the world”.

Annika invites you to check out the Seed Waikato website or get in touch directly with an email at kiaora@seedwaikato.nz if you would like to get involved with the Seed Waikato mahi, or have any questions for her.

The Graduate Diploma in Communication is a one year graduate programme for anyone wanting to change careers and gain skills in the Communication, Marketing and Content Creation fields. Contact Wintec School of Media Arts for more details.