Chetan Anand

After earning his Bachelor of Engineering in India and finding work on a smart city project with Wave Infratech, Chetan Anand decided it was time to pursue a Masters qualification. While career progression was a major motivation, he also thought the timing was right.

“I felt that at age 24 it was a good time for me to pursue my Masters as I wasn’t too far from being in ‘study mode’ from my Bachelors and had gained a fair bit of experience in the practical world,” he said. “The more I became engrossed in my job, the less chance that I would be able to climb out at a later stage and pursue further studies.”

The next step was choosing somewhere to study. Chetan had always heard great things about New Zealand’s people and culture. This coupled with the University of Auckland’s reputation made moving here an easy choice for him, and one that supported his career aspirations too.

“The warm and accepting culture of the people was a major reason for me to choose New Zealand, and having lived here for almost two years I can tell from personal experience that everything I heard about NZ was absolutely correct. It’s been a ‘sweet as’ experience,” Chetan says.

Chetan attained a Master of Engineering Studies, specialising in Construction Management. This aligned not only with his previous work experience, but a skills shortage in New Zealand that meant the further qualification was greatly improving his employability. Considering he’s ended up with a role as Assistant Project Manager at Beca, it’s a move that’s helped Chetan move forward in his career in an environment he’s really enjoying.

“In terms of opportunities, Beca is the place to be,” Chetan says. “As Beca is one of the leading NZ firms, there is a wide variety of projects you can pick and choose from, and the seniors encourage you to explore as much as you want.”

Pursuing a Masters helped prepare Chetan for this role, and a big part of that was the practical expertise the lecturers were bringing into the classroom. In particular, Chetan cites the Project Management Case Studies course taught by Bruce Marks.

“The classroom experience of being taught by a person like Bruce is just next level. He comes with decades of practical experience across different sectors such as oil and gas and construction,” Chetan said. “The level of interaction between the students and Bruce was very high and I guess that was because he shared how projects worked in real life rather than just what they told us in textbooks.”