How to Be a "Uni" Student

How to be a uni student? First, make sure you pronounce it “you-knee,” not “oo-knee,” because you will surely be laughed at.  On the positive side, you can make some incredible sushi jokes. 

Learn how to get to class.  Walk through the Domain, strolling past colorful flower gardens and the stately Auckland Museum.  Suddenly, you’ll face the city.  Check left, right, and rotate 360 degrees now that left-sided roads have made you incapable of crossing safely.  Begin trekking towards the peak: the University of Auckland.  Leave an extra ten minutes just for sopping your sweat.  The sidewalk? Oh, the “footpath.”  Hang left, but because you’re walking in an international place, people walk on both sides, so you’ll perform some skilled swivels.

Approach your first lecture, a 300 level literature course titled, “The Modern Novel.”  Be attentive, and listen closely.  Your professor talks quickly and quietly, as if she’s containing excitement at a formal tea.  Curse the lingo language barrier—jandals, togs, keen, oh my.  You’re in an English speaking country.  Immediately feel guilty for all the abroad students facing true language barriers. 

Attempt to get a coffee on the way to class.  Cry at the difficulties of finding iced coffee in New Zealand, while simultaneously being seduced by the flat white.  Sip the coffee on the way to your creative writing tutorial.  Feel the excitement manifest in your gait as you bounce towards the building.  Maybe it was the caffeine.  Take your seat and look around the table only to find an array of well-dressed Kiwis.  Participate in the cycle of listening, writing, and sharing for the 50-minute time block.  Notice feelings of nervousness and insufficiency surmount your initial zest.  Classes here are harder than at home—more readings, less assignments, challenging tutorials.

After class, exit the building only to find the once spacious courtyard now transformed into a sea of tents—the club fair.  Look to your right and you’ll see glee club, behind you is the tramping club, ultimate Frisbee in front, and anime behind you.  You feel like a fish in a coral reef trying to navigate this colorful ecosystem.  Sign up for a range of clubs.  Some groups will feel familiar to you, like the ultimate Frisbee team and the radio station, but stretch your limbs a bit further towards the tramping club. 

Return to your academics and find yourself exploring the library’s top floor.  Surrounded by windows, you lose your concentration to the gaping cityscape. Your speedometer has decreased, your engine has stopped, and finally, the beautiful horizon provides sustained relief, reminding you that you’re in a stunning country on the other side of the world.  Sweet as.