International Student Perspective

We at Maverick Group are always looking for ways to attract more and more people from the outside world to come to Dunedin to study, work and live. Last Friday we had a small brainstorming activity with 5 international students, all from the University of Otago. We had students from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam some of whom had been here for more than 6 years and 1 for less than 6 months. We talked about security and safety issues, and whether the situation had gotten better or worse since each arrived. The conclusion being that while the chance of physical violence was low for students, the social settings, especially for international female students, did indeed provide some areas of concern - particularly around the consumption of alcohol.

All students liked the fact that the town was small and easy to get around (most places in only 10 minutes), and very much quieter than most of the places the students originated from - but this was seen as a good thing for study, as there were less distractions to interfere with school. The University of Otago itself came out positively, as the opportunities to study pharmacy and dentistry were open and accessible to international students, they are somewhat limited in other Universities in New Zealand, as well as in their home countries. There is room for improvement in student support at most of the local high schools, as well as the University itself, but we took this to mean that there are opportunities for Maverick Group and its team to assist these organizations to improve such services. Mostly by a "hands on" approach with all of our brainstorming team committed to the task, especially with the support of international high school kids.

This was our first of hopefully many meetings as a group, and I will keep you updated on our progress as we proceed. I will also enlighten you about another recent brainstorming session with a group of business students (50/50 mix of local kiwis and newcomers) about the future of Dunedin from a business perspective.