Candidate: Shuaib Ali

My name is Shuaib Ali, I am an 18 years old Fiji Indian male of a mixed religion family, an undergraduate student of UoA and a student of biological science and am a member of the AUSS strength club. I hold both academic and athletic awards from my time in Mt Albert Grammar high school both in school and outside. I aspire to the role of student representative because I see it as an ideal opportunity for me to demonstrate my leadership, mature decision making and the wide variety of ideas I have for the future of UoA. I believe I'll make an ideal representative for UoA because of my achievements, mentality, wide variety of life experience, and overwhelming ambition to do and achieve greatness. What I believe makes a worthy leader is someone who not only is intelligent academically but more so emotionally. Someone who understands their followers' backgrounds, someone who can empathise with them and their unique life experience and adapt and cater their own mindset and decision making to benefit them. I myself am an older sibling with a 12 year age gap with my sister who I had a strong hand in raising. I'm an immigrant from Fiji and moved here for better education. Growing up I was a rather unathletic and trouble maker of a child who didn't do well academically and was mocked by my classmates for many years. I say these things to press a point, that through all these hardships in my life it gave me a gift, the opportunity to develop the skill and will to overcome the challenges in my life and overall better myself, and because of that I now am a proud student of UoA with high dreams for my future and a strong will to achieve it. With this election I see it as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the skills I have built to change the UoA for the better for its students and its overall image. I leave this statement short because I am a firm believer that action speaks louder than words, so give me the chance to demonstrate in actions what I am capable of for you.