Eugene Marikhin

Graduate Diploma in Information Technology

Russia

Eugene Marikhin has gained confidence, found a new passion, and made lifelong friends since enrolling at OPAIC.

Eugene came to New Zealand from Russia last August and has been studying the Graduate Diploma in Information Technology.

The student has a background in telecommunications, with seven years of experience in the industry. He came to OPAIC to extend his knowledge of information technology.

“I have become much more confident in IT thanks to OPAIC, found yet another passion which is called data science.”

He’d like to pursue a data science career right after graduation. Eugene’s been working at Magic Memories at Auckland Zoo, a company which takes photographs of visitors. He’s proposed solutions for predicting daily revenue based on various factors such as weather, using knowledge from his data science study at OPAIC.

Eugene says all lecturers at OPAIC are true professionals, courses are affordable, and study programs are flexible.

He also found good friends at OPAIC during a group project involving creating an app.

An experienced web designer from the Philippines created an amazing front end, a classmate from Kazakhstan created the backend and Eugene managed to connect the two. A Chinese team member created a great presentation at the end.

They all understood each other, despite English not being the first language for any of them.

 “I did find amazing friends here at OPAIC and I’m pretty sure our friendship will be long as sometimes we understand each other without even saying anything,” says Eugene.

In his spare time, Eugene reads a lot about physics and astrophysics. He’s built up a lot of knowledge, which he shares during physics classes for children every Saturday afternoon.

Currently he offers the group in Russian. But he hopes to set up the classes in English as he becomes more confident with the language.

Eugene says he always wanted to come to New Zealand and now that he’s here it’s even more beautiful than in the photos and videos he’s seen.

“I’ve travelled a lot. I’ve visited around 25 countries and New Zealand is definitely number one.”

His advice to people back home thinking of coming to New Zealand: “Stop thinking and start acting.”

Moving halfway across the world wasn’t an easy decision for people to make but it was definitely worth it.

“Probably now I’m the happiest person in the world, because I’m in the country of my dreams.”