First Week of Classes

After a month of doing the abroad part, I finally had to add the word “study” in front of it.

Monday February 27, 2023

My first day going to Uni! I got lunch with my Arcadia friends Rebekah and Skye at a little cafe on campus that is unfortunately closing in a month or so. I then read the school magazine and wrote to the design editors about putting my cartoons in it.

My first class was Media of New Zealand. This is a two-hour class and I found it super interesting. The class basically focuses on the various media outlets of New Zealand, their finances and how they function. There is about thirty students in the class and it seems quite manageable. I do need to do some research on all these media outlets though! I had no idea what TVNZ and RNZ were. I did get up the courage to ask a question towards the end of class! At the end of class, I decided to stay back and introduce myself. I explained how I was studying abroad from the US and both the professor and the tutor (teaching assistant) were so kind and I really liked talking to them. They are so passionate about the subject, it’s infectious.

In the afternoon, I went to the chemist (pharmacy), talked with Elina on the phone and went to a comic book store to look for New Zealand comics. I asked the man that ran the store about such books and he spent a long while talking to me about comics from New Zealand and Australia. I bought a couple!

Tuesday February 28, 2023

Today was full of activity. First I had my Artificial Intelligence class. This class is huge! Apparently 240 students are registered for it. We didn’t really get to any material today and instead went over the logistics of the class. Every few class periods, the professor teaching will be alternating.

After class, I went to check out the club fair. The club I really want to join is Tramping Club (hiking) because I think it would be a good way to see more of New Zealand and also I feel I need to experience overnight hiking while I’m here. I checked out some other clubs too but I’m still figuring out what I’ll actually join.

In the afternoon, I met up with one of the Arcadia leaders for a scheduled coffee tasting and tour. Only one other student and I could make it due to scheduling conflicts. We walked to a coffee shop/distributer where we were given a tour around the building. We saw where they roast the beans, where they package them, etc. The people that worked there took coffee so very very seriously. When it came time for the tasting, they set their timer to give each cup exactly 4 minutes to for the coffee to dissolve in the water before they skimmed off the top skin of the coffee. And when it was time to taste it, we had to slurp to have the coffee completely cover our palate. After all the hype, I was hoping that maybe I’d actually discover that I liked the taste of coffee.

I did not discover that. I tasted them all and found them all icky. The guy working there asked me to describe the coffee. I couldn’t find any polite words except “intense”. I did some quick shopping for a pan and then I went back to my dorm and face-timed my friends Lauren and Jennifer from Brandeis.

In the evening, I went to a tramping club meeting to learn more about it and I decided to go on their first tramp of the semester in two weeks!

I had signed up with Brandeis to make some TikTok’s about my time here so I did a day-in-the-life today. Here it is. It shows some clips regarding what I described above.

Wednesday March 1, 2023

I have no classes on Wednesday! By looking at the map, I found a small island named Matiu/Somes Island in the Wellington Harbour and I wrote to the international student group chat to see if anyone was keen to join. My friends Rebekah and Skye were interested and we also got a lot of other responses. Ultimately, we ended up with two new people joining us. We took a ferry out the island and walked around the whole island. We even saw New Zealand’s most photographed sheep.

Thursday March 2, 2023

I only had Artificial Intelligence class today and when I was done with it, I went shopping for a sleeping bag and tramping pack for the upcoming overnight trip. I’m starting to see the appeal of living in the city. Everything is nearby! I went to all the competing outdoors stores, talked to all the different representatives, learned what they recommended and eventually settled on some nice equipment I’ll want to take home with me when I leave. I even met a nice dude from Maine that had moved to New Zealand and now works at one of the stores. In the evening, I went out to dinner with friends at a place that gives student discounts on Thursdays.

Friday March 3, 2023

And just like that, it was Friday! I had my Artificial Intelligence tutorial in the morning where a professor (different from last class) was going over the history of AI. I also met a nice guy from Wellington that was sitting next to me. In the afternoon, I had my creative nonfiction class. There are only twelve students in the class and it’s on Zoom. Each week in the first half of the trimester, we will be given an exercise to work on during the week and then we have to read our work aloud in class and give feedback. Today, we had to do that as well but we also had to write our work during class which was extra stressful. It’ll be challenging but I think I’ll learn a lot in the class.

I went to the Botanical gardens after class and talked to my parents on the phone.

Then I returned to my flat and ate dinner with my flatmates.

This weekend is gonna be packed with fun but I’ll save that for my next post.