Ines Moran shares her Wahapū experience

“I’ve always been fascinated by animal communication, and knew I wanted to be a researcher in this field since I was about seven years old. I came to New Zealand to do my PhD at the University of Auckland, researching the vocal learning of the rifleman, a small New Zealand bird.

“It’s been a challenging journey, but with some very good moments as well. Since the pandemic began, I have been doing my research and thesis writing online from the United States. Now I’m reaching the final few weeks before I submit my thesis.

“It’s a nerve-wracking time but moving to Wahapū has made my life so much easier and removed a lot of my stress. Now that I’m on the new PhD Statute, I just need to submit my thesis online once, rather than needing to print three copies for the examiners. This really does make the administrative process so much easier, especially as an offshore candidate."

“When Wahapū and the new Statute first started coming in, I did wonder what the point was in changing statutes – but once I learned more, I could see how the system was going to help me. Like any new system, I had to spend a bit of time discovering how everything works on the platform, but it’s all been very simple.

“Within Wahapū, every administrative step is all in one place. In the old Statute, we had a lot of paperwork, which involved going to various webpages to find everything you needed. It’s nice to see how various stages of the PhD process are progressing. For example, when I indicated my intention to submit, I was able to track this really easily and see where I was at. The system also simplifies other processes, making it easy to do things like changing your thesis title.

“My advice to anyone considering making the move to Wahapū is simple: do it! It will make your life easier, save you time, and remove a whole lot of stress for you!”