Erfahrungsberichte - University of Waikato / Neuseeland

Frank Danzinger: Wirtschaftspaedagogik/Technologiemanagement [1/2005 - 9/2005]

Erfahrungsbericht - Frank Danzinger

Choosing New Zealand for the destination of my stay abroad happened actually more accidentally than consciously. Since I was looking for interesting papers in course database for Australian universities, I was quite surprised to realize that the University of Waikato (that I considered to offer the most attractive papers for me) could not be found in Hamilton, Australia, but in Hamilton, New Zealand. However, some of the best things in life happen accidentally, this is at least true for my choice of Hamilton. – Let me share some of my impressions from down under with you:

Getting Started – Some thoughts on my preparation phase
Since I am sometimes one of these “scheduled” Germans, as my Kiwi friends have told me, I tried to get a lot of things done before my departure. Retrospectively, I have to say that I still think that it was worth the effort because it saved me some of my precious and short time of my stay in New Zealand for more interesting things. Firstly, I can highly recommend the course database for Australia and New Zealand of the Ranke-Heinemann Institute in Germany. This institute offers additionally a first orientation, regular presentations, recommendations, help for the application processes and even a few scholarships.

Secondly, the visa. You can travel to New Zealand on a three months visitor's visa if you can show an outbound ticket. However, the application in Germany for a student visa takes exactly the same procedure and documents. Although the website says that it may take up to eight weeks to get it done, my passport including a New Zealand student visa was returned within five days.

Thirdly, there is the insurance issue. The University of Waikato recommends to use their student insurance supplier “unicare”. The choice of this option is not significantly more expensive and may also help you to avoid some acceptance problems due to insurances of other providers (without this acceptance you will not be enrolled). After writing a lot of applications and overcoming some difficulties, such as dealing with different scholarhips or organizing my earlier arrival in New Zealand, I was set up for my departure.

Heading South
As everyone can easily recognize by having a look at a map of the world, Germany and New Zealand are two of the most distant spots on our globe. This causes pure flight durations from 25 to 30 hours and a jet lag of 10 to 12 hours. Thus, a stop-over is highly recommendable. My stop-over brought me to Singapore, an exciting, crowded, multicultural and metropolitan melting pot. Although I was there for only some days including the celebration of New Year’s Eve on Sentosa Beach, I can definitely say that Singapore as a stop-over destination is an exciting experience. With its urban character, Singapore offers probably one of the biggest contrasts to rural New Zealand.

Haere Mai - Welcome to New Zealand
The first thing you probably might recognize when you hit New Zealand for the first time is, that it is all about Kiwis. Whereas Germans normally talk about the fruit when we mention kiwi, New Zealand offers a greater variety of meanings for kiwis: they have kiwi people, kiwi birds and kiwi fruits. Kiwis (the people, they talk of the themselves as being New Zealanders only in more serious conversations) are very open and friendly people. Thus, it is not surprising that I was often invited to visit people that I hardly knew. It happened also to me that Kiwis offered me a free bed in their house – although I was not used to this high degree of openness, I took some of these opportunities and made some really interesting and real kiwi experiences. - so if it happens to you, go for it!

The friendliness and openness of New Zealanders is striking. – I could even experience this in my application process. All of my enquiries and problems have been solved within a very short time (in comparison to what I knew from German universities). Even if I had talked to the wrong person about my problems in first place, my contact person was able to solve my problem somehow or found someone who could solve it for me. This “let’s-get-it-done” mentality is a part of the kiwi culture as well as the famous “laid-back”-attitude. Both parts together create a very nice atmosphere to live in. One similarity between kiwi people and kiwi birds is, that they seem to be seldom.

New Zealand is highly international (especially if you consider a population of only four millions on a territory of almost Germany’s size). Especially on campus there are big groups of Chinese and other Asians as well as Europeans and North Americans. Additionally, New Zealand is a bi-cultural country (with a Maori and a Pakeha population) and is going to be multi-cultural due to the high number of immigrants. Subsequently, New Zealand is a great spot to experience what globalization and multicultural life is all about. Within my short time here in New Zealand I was living in my flat with people of twelve different nationalities (e. g. Swedish, Italian, NZ, Pacific Islander, British, Martiniquean, American, Mexican, ...) – which is surprising, considering that our flat had only four rooms.

There are two outstanding characteristics of the tiny islands next to Australia (do not underestimate the real size ): First, as soon as you meet kiwis, it is all about rugby, and this comes – like in Germany – normally with a beer. Second, New Zealand is all about nature – anyone who wants to see big, exciting and interesting cities is probably wrong in New Zealand.

Hamilton – my home in New Zealand’s dairy heartland
Hamilton is New Zealand’s fourth biggest “city” with a population of 160,000. Being located on the North Island of the All-Blacks (national Rugby team) country, it is also home of the Chiefs (the local team – this information is very valuable, you will see). It is located about 70 kms south of Auckland and 40 kms away form Raglan (beach). Historically, Hamilton is the centre of New Zealand’s largest dairy area. Hosting the Wintec Institute and the University of Waikato, education is the second biggest industry in Hamilton. Although it is one of New Zealand’s biggest towns, it has maintained a rural character and is a nice and quiet spot to live in. Nevertheless, it offers also a nightlife that can compete with Auckland’s.

Waikato University Campus and Student Experience
The University of Waikato is a campus university and is located at the edge of Hamilton (about 20 min. walk to the centre). The campus is, like the whole university, with only 40 years of existence, quite new. The layout is well considered and there is still a lot of room for extensions of the campus. With a second and remote campus, the university is equipped with latest technology and can even provide video conferencing in most of the lecture halls. The atmosphere on campus is a very international one. The biggest non-kiwi group on campus are Chinese students, mainly from exchange programmes with universities in the greater Shanghai area. The lecturers are nationality-wise likewise a very international group – in all my lectures and tutorials less than 50% of my lecturers and tutors were native kiwis. Since a high number of internationals on campus does not only create advantages, the university tries hard to offer various institutions and programmes, like the teaching and language department, international hours, communication classes (highly recommendable), … in order to face these problems.

The teaching style in New Zealand is quite different from that what most of the German tertiary institutions offer. Firstly, a high percentage of the final marks are determined by various assignments and presentations within the term. Extensive and relevant reading packages are also more important in contrast to what we know from most institutions in Germany. At least in my papers the importance of values, ethics, issues of gender and minorities were often addressed in contexts where they normally cannot be found at my home university.

The status of an international student in an individual paper credit (IPC) programme allowed me to join various faculties (technology, education and business). This aspect gave me a lot of freedom for own research in fields of my own interests and make the choice of papers and transfer of credits much easier. The University of Waikato tries hard to become one of the best universities and research institutions in Australasia and works also hard on its international reputation, recognition and accreditation. Thus, the University of Waikato has already two accreditations and is currently looking for a third one in order to reach the desirable triple crown status. This spirit and professionalism is perceivable for students and is shown in latest tertiary institutions surveys, too (especially the technology and business faculties are ranked best in Australasia). The university in Hamilton has a strong belief in SMEs and entrepreneurship (e. g. I joined the enterprise and innovation conference in July 2005) as well as in sustainability. Although some approaches on these topics are slightly different to ours, the sustainability aspects of technologies and businesses seem to be much more important than they are at home.

By the way, there is another important aspect for Germans who want to study in New Zealand: if you want to study on postgraduate level (papers on level 5, sometimes even lower), domestic fees apply for us (which is roughly speaking a saving of two thirds of the international tution fees – money that could be spend for travelling).

In a nutshell: my study experience in New Zealand enriched my academic life and I could easily combine the existing differences between both systems (but I know that this is not the case for all my German fellows). Being aware of the strengths of our system and open-mindedness for new things seem to me the most important points in order to cope with the differences and in order to broaden own perspectives.

Experiencing New Zealand: Travelling - a “must-have” for any study abroad student
A New Zealand experience is, of course, incomplete without a longer travelling section. Fortunately, I could travel the South Island between summer school and the start of the A-semester. Having six weeks from mid of January to start of March, I travelled most of the South Island, from Steward Island up to Abel Tasman. Deep down south I could easily recognize what New Zealand is all about: pure nature! – I may even say that if someone has not been at least on one of the longer tramps through New Zealand’s loneliness and wilderness, it is hard to imagine what it is really about. Whereas most of the tourists never see one of the few kiwi birds or just spot one in a zoo, I was lucky during a tramp and after three days of loneliness in Steward Island’s forests to meet a kiwi-bird in wildlife – one of my unique New Zealand experiences! New Zealands scenery can be characterized by a great variety: impressive volcanos, alps, glaciers, impressive rain and native forests, beautiful lakes and picturesque beaches and bays, fjords, and an amazing wildlife ... all this can be experienced and observed here. Due to a low population density and the history of New Zealand, most of the cities and towns appear not really interesting. – Most of them can be experienced within one to three days.

Generally, the South Island is considered to be more beautiful than the North Island. However, I likewise found lots of picturesque spots on the North, too: Northland, East Cape, Taupo, Waitomo Caves (45 min. from Hamilton) and Mt. Taranaki are just a few of them. Unfortunately, the university kept most of us that busy with assignments that travelling during the term was only possible for a weekend a month and during the teaching recess. Travelling and adventure sports in New Zealand are certainly a “must-have” on both islands! All of my New Zealand travels are closely combined with backpacking and camping – which is normal: the sleeping bag and a good back bag will become your best friends whilst travelling Kiwiland.

Thoughts on my time in New Zealand and Hamilton
Although this report is written in my last days here in New Zealand, I think that I can already give a short wrap-up. To study in New Zealand was one of my best decisions ever. I will definitely come back some time! My stay has certainly changed some of my academic and non-academic views on what happens in the world. Since there were also a few German students here in Hamilton, I just can give you one advice: Try to stay away from your German fellows and you will gain much more new experiences than if you are right from the start connected to a German group. Right, there are some inconveniences at the beginning if you decide to do this, but a lot of exciting friendships and experiences in the long-run (this is at least what I my few German acquaintants, who were connected to a German group, told me). If you are interested in studying in New Zealand or just travelling there feel free to contact me and/or visit www.franky-goes-to-kiwiland.de.

Cya and have a great time in New Zealand! Cheerz, Frank

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