Graduate profiles

A refreshed Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland Graduate Profile launched in 2024. The distinctive, bold vision for the University expressed in the University's strategy Taumata Teitei, has driven the need for a refresh of our Graduate Profile to ensure it best captures our aspirations for our students.

The revised profile aligns with global and local drivers and delivery of the University’s commitment to educating graduates to ‘make the world better tomorrow than it is today’. It captures how we expect to equip graduates for their future lives and careers and to meet this challenge.

It delivers a strong positioning of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and mātauranga Māori and places a stronger emphasis on work integrated learning, transdisciplinarity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The themes and capabilities used in the revised Graduate Profile document are now used in the 2024 Digital Course Outlines.  New programme-specific Graduate Profiles have been refreshed to align with the University Graduate Profile and these will apply to all new students entering a programme of study from the start of 2024, with the exception of postgraduate qualifications offered by the Business School which will come into effect in 2025.

Returning students who commenced their degree prior to 2024, will complete their programme under the Graduate Profile in place when they first enrolled. They will, however, find that over a transition period, Digital Course Outlines will show the learning outcomes for each of their courses mapped to the refreshed set of capabilities. 

The graduate profile reflects a set of attributes that we consider to be attainable by graduates of a research-led comprehensive university. They make clear to students and staff, to potential students, to employers, to the community and to other academic institutions, the qualities that Waipapa Taumata Rau | the University of Auckland seeks to impart to, or foster in, its graduates.

Responsibility for enabling graduates to meet the Graduate Profile lies with University staff and students. We hope that, as individuals and as members of the University community, all will engage in the teaching, learning, research and creative activities of the University, and in its extra-curricular, cultural, intellectual, social and sports life, to achieve the aspirations we hold for our graduates.

Graduate Profiles have three levels:

• Level 1 captures the University’s overarching strategic aspirations for all its students. 
• Level 2 outlines the five themes that relate to the Level 1 aspirations. The themes reflect the ties between this place of learning, its people and contexts, the central concern for our shared academic ambition and achievement, and graduates’ ongoing connections to others within and beyond the University. 
• Level 3 is a set of specific capabilities that enable each qualification to interpret and deliver each theme. This is referred to as an ‘embedded graduate profile’.
  

Pūmātauranga | Scholars – Graduates are knowledgeable and curious, excited by ideas and conscientious in their efforts to understand the complexities of their communities and the world.

Aronga Raraupori | Global Citizens – Graduates are interculturally aware and connected to the peoples of New Zealand, Te Moananuiā-Kiwa (The Pacific) and our international communities. Graduates seek to make the world a fair and better place.

Kiriauaha | Innovators – Graduates are creative and inventive, building sustainably on the past to respond to current and future challenges.

Kaiarataki | Leaders – Graduates are influential, inspiring and impactful. They are inclusive, empowering and service-minded.

The following themes articulate Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland graduates’ educational journey. They reflect the ties between this place of learning, its people and contexts, the central concern for our shared academic ambition and achievement, and graduates’ ongoing connections to others within and beyond the University. Taken holistically, they cluster capabilities which the University seeks to foster in all graduates and so prepare students for their future lives and careers.