Twins don't do things by halves

Citizen and Wellington Tamatimu are among the first in their family to graduate from university. Photo / Greg Bowker

Citizen and Wellington Tamatimu learned their love of the law from their father and watching TV legal dramas.

Now the 23-year-old twins - after help from a school mentoring programme - are celebrating becoming among the first in their family to graduate from university, gaining conjoint degrees in law and commerce.

They marched with 300 law graduates yesterday and were presented with their law degrees. Tomorrow they will receive their commerce degrees.

The twins are now working for inner-city accounting firms.

The Tamatimus' family, church and former high school Kelston Boys' High are among the proud followers of the boys' academic progress.

While they were studious at school, it was the Mates (Mentoring and Tutoring Education Scheme) programme that helped propel them towards university. A mentor, who was studying medicine at the time, taught the boys time-management and essay-writing techniques.

The twins then signed up as Mates mentors in their second year of study.

"It taught us leadership skills and to pass on what we had learned at university it was quite refreshing," Wellington said.

At university, the pair were assisted financially by a Chancellor's Award for Maori and Pacific scholars.

Wellington was proud to be among the "handful" of Pacific Island students to be presented a law degree yesterday.

Right now he and Citizen are pursuing a path in commercial law but eventually would like to work among the Pacific Island community, he said.

The twins have always shared the same interests and it seemed natural for them to both choose a business-law combination.

Wellington said their father instilled an interest in law in his sons and when they were younger the pair would watch legal dramas on television such as The Practice.

Citizen said study was made easier having someone by his side. The twins worked as a team to study but competition kicked in in the exam room.

Citizen said the feeling of completing his degree was taking a while to sink in.

"When you study you can't wait until you finish but when you do, you want to go back and relive it," he said.

This week 5747 students will graduate from the University of Auckland, receiving a total of 6313 qualifications.