Former Tauranga college student Mackenzie Bennett has her sights set on owning a restaurant - a goal she's one step closer to with the help of a big scholarship.
Mackenzie, 19, pictured, is one of the first recipients of the new Woolf Fisher First-in-Family AUT Scholarships, which covers the direct costs of study for the duration of the scholarship winner's undergraduate degree with a nominal value of around $20,000 per scholarship.
The former Tauranga Girls' College student said the first thing she did when she found out she had won the scholarship was to ring her mum - even though Mackenzie was in the United Kingdom and it was late at night New Zealand time.
"I told mum, 'oh my gosh I've got the scholarship'. I was really happy and I had a few tears from my mum. My family is incredibly, incredibly proud, they haven't stopped telling me how proud they are of me."
She is studying a Bachelor of Business this year and hopes to branch out into a Bachelor of Arts degree next year, enabling her to get a qualification in culinary arts.