South Auckland high school students get MusicBiz savvy
More than 30 secondary students from schools around South Auckland, and the wider Auckland region, got to hang out with some top radio personalities and learn about the business side of the music industry at Music Biz – a music-meets-the-business-industry workshop held at the Auckland University of Technology’s South Campus in Manukau.
The AUT Business School at the South Campus put together a day of games and interactive sessions with Flava and AUT student ambassadors to inspire secondary students and get them thinking about specific aspects of business, and how they relate to the real world and more specifically, New Zealand’s music industry.
Radio personality and content director Hayden Hare shed light about the behind-the scenes of the radio industry.
“It’s not about showing up and going straight into the studio, it’s the stuff you don’t see that runs the radio station,” says Hare.
“But I love my job, it’s not difficult to get up in the morning.”
Hare encouraged the students to make the most of the opportunities offered to them.
“Explore your options. If there’s an open door, just take it.
“In many years of being in radio, I’ve seen people at the bottom end up in the top seat because they took every opportunity, learnt a little bit from everybody they met and applied themselves. If you are seen as passionate and aggressive for opportunities, you will get it,” says Hare.
AUT Programme Director Equity Initiatives Agnes Naera says the business pathway offered many career choices to secondary school students unsure about what their university choices were.
“There’s a lot of value that comes out of studying a Business degree,” says Naera.
“Every organisation needs people with skills in accounting, finance, and management. The interactive sessions today at MusicBiz gave these students a taste of the real life working environments in business.”
AUT second year Bachelor of Business student Jarod Kennedy, says MusicBiz was a good opportunity to show students how business connected all types of industries.
“Business underpins everything,” says Kennedy.
“You can take the skills you learn in business and bring it into any industry you want to go into.”
Vea Maamanu, Bachelor of Business student, said the interactive sessions were designed to be easy to understand for students.
“The interactive activities made business aspects like HR and management that might seem foreign to secondary school students, come alive.
“I think being able to get hands-on with the activities helped translate these concepts into tangible possible career paths for the students, and it was great to see all of them having so much fun.”