By Daniel Henderson  October 27, 2011

Ashburton has a Rhodes Scholar in its midst.

Andrew Dean, 23, will start the exclusive scholarship next October at Oxford University.
“It’s life changing, but it’ll be four years with my nose to the grindstone.”
So, more of the same for the Canterbury University student.
Mr Dean’s undergraduate degree was a Bachelor of Arts in English and Chinese with a post graduate year in English which gained him a First Class Honours degree.
An exhaustive interview process whittled down candidates from New Zealand’s universities. Three were sent from each to Government House in Wellington. They are then interviewed by a panel including the Governer-General Sir Jerry Mateparae.
“I’m not that stressful a person. By the time I walk in, I’m not worried.”
This bodes well for the many exams and assignments Mr Dean will doubtless be doing, and he is looking forward to the Oxford environment.
“The intellectual rigour, I’ll be with the best people in the field.”
At Oxford he intends to study for a Master of Studies in English leading onto a doctorate. He is interested in women writers, including Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and Janet Frame.
“Women’s writing has historically been writing out of the experience of being oppressed and how to navigate and use the language of the oppressor, the dominant culture.”
New Zealand’s best writers have been women and Janet Frame being nominated for a Nobel Prize exemplified this, Mr Dean said.
The Rhodes trust was set up via the deceased Cecil Rhodes’ interest in The De Beers diamond company of Zimbabwe and it pays for the scholarship which over three years is worth £90,000.
Mr Dean has a bit of time to fill before next October and hopes to get some teaching work at Canterbury University. But with the earthquake related turmoil that institution is going through, he is not too sure how much will be available, he said.