Alexander Kuhlmann - Germany, July 2012 to July 2013

When I first came to New Zealand I knew that I wouldn’t just want to go for the experience and the new and different education, but I knew that I wanted to do sports … lots of sports. On the school homepage everything seemed very promising and exciting to me. Sports I’ve never really done before like canoe polo, rock climbing, tramping or cycling, all being part of the programme of a school subject.  Of course I therefore choose Outdoor education as one of my subjects and it was simply amazing.  Climbing a rock wall as a school subject? Sounds cool to me! So once I had lived the New Zealand way I started focusing on sports. I joined the team of my favourite sport, soccer. Very soon after that we competed in the Linwood tournament in Napier where we achieved a great 3rd place in a competition out of 24 of New Zealand’s best colleges.  A week after that we managed to claim the Trevor brooking trophy for the 11th time in a row for Horowhenua College. So I may call that a great start into my New Zealand activities. Earlier in the year I joined the Levin Athletics club after some of my friends suggested I should give it a visit and it was great fun. I actually turned out to win the schools intermediate athletics and breaking the schools record at javelin and also went on to rank three 2nd places at the Manawatu secondary schools athletics which then qualified me for the North Islands Secondary School championships. The North Islands were held in Masterton which would be a new town for me to see and big thanks to my host dad who took me all the way down there 1 and a half hours each way just for me to compete in the javelin competition.   This turned out to be a great success.  The school record was broken again and I missed out on winning the event by only under a metre and therefore saved myself the 2nd place and a qualification for the NZ Nationals.    During this time some of my friends recommended canoe polo to me so I gave it a shot. I went to my first training one Wednesday night and it was awesome. It was such a fun game that I then turned out to play twice or up to three times a week!  After only 4 weeks after my first practise my coach then told me he’d like me to play at the Canoe Polo Regional Championships.  And after sitting out the first game I then took part in a regional competition in a sport I played for only four weeks.  And it gets better!  We achieved  2nd place in the competition and qualified for the NZ Nationals where two weeks later we earned ourselves the silver medal in a National Competition!  That was one of the greatest sport events in my life and I’d love to continue playing polo in the future.  In addition to athletics, soccer and canoe polo, I also played in the twilight soccer competition.  My Volleyball team came 2nd in the Manawatu Volleyball division one, we won the u19 soccer Manawatu division one and played in the schools futsal team who came 12th at the NZ National futsal championships.  I also brought home a 4th place in one of the schools swimming sports events.   Aside from Sport,  I managed to be a good student earning a Services to Drama certificate and to be a member of the Schools student council representing the International and exchange students. Concluding all that I’d say that coming to New Zealand was one of the greatest experiences in my life and Horowhenua is a great school that gives everyone so many opportunities to succeed and learn. It’s mostly about what you try and I tried many things and I achieved many things. But without trying there is no success. As long as you give it your best you will never underachieve! This is a Horowhenua College saying, and that is what I learned at Horowhenua College. » View all testimonials