A Papamoa woman took her IT skills from Tauranga to China last week after receiving an all expenses paid trip to go behind the scenes at Huawei, a multinational networking and telecommunications company in Shenzhen.
Sabrina Jay, a computer and information science student at Auckland University of Technology, returned last Sunday from the two-week trip, which initially she thought she would not get.
"I got an email and looked at it and thought, 'an all expenses paid trip to China, that can't be right. It must be spam'," Ms Jay said.
Ms Jay applied after receiving another email about the trip and was chosen for the experience after a strenuous vetting process.
She was one of six students who got the opportunity to be immersed in life in China.