DARE aims to inspire and enthuse students towards choosing University of Otago for undergraduate courses, and the Christchurch campus for postgraduate pathways.

Once a year Christchurch high school students (Year 12 and 13) can visit the University of Otago Christchurch campus, for interactive sessions and hands-on displays designed to highlight the various career paths in health and health science. Students from all high schools in and around Christchurch are invited to attend.

Some of our wonderful RHS Students attended this years DARE programme and gave some great feedback following the event:

"It was an exciting and informative day in my last year of high school. I learnt a lot about Otago and how University in New Zealand works. As an international student, I have a very limited idea about those things. At the start of the day, teachers and professors shared  about what Otago’s life looks like and the courses studied at Uni. This was very helpful for me in my future planning. Also, I enjoyed the one-to-one conversation and the activities very interesting too. It is a very good opportunity to ask the questions you are confused about and learn some new knowledge that might not be taught in high school". - Hengyi Jiang

"DARE day was such a good opportunity for us as the knowledge we have about Otago and the health sector is very limited as high school students. It was a nice day with a lot of useful information being shared with us. We especially liked the session where all the current students talked to us about their experiences. We believe that their thoughts and opinions are a lot more useful for us as students than information given to us by teachers and professors as their viewpoints are entirely different. We also really enjoyed getting to talk to experts about their specialties and having one-on-one conversations. We had an opportunity to ask any question we had about each department and all our confusions and questions were resolved. They were very open-minded and approachable and they made everyone feel very comfortable. We all left the university with much more information and confidence about our futures and having resolved all our uncertainties". - Chamasha Kaluarachchige