Arcadia New Zealand

The following is an interview with Denison university Student Caroline Delehey, who is studying abroad at the Victoria University of Wellington in the fall of 2016

What made you choose New Zealand for your study abroad experience?

Honestly? I was contemplating between Europe and New Zealand. I liked the idea of Europe because you can travel a lot of places easily, but I figured I would never have the opportunity to live in New Zealand for 5-6 months again, and I could do the touristy stuff in Europe in like two weeks.

I never took a language, so not having a language barrier gave me the confidence to go study abroad. Even just planning a weekend trip, it’s like “oh I rented a car, I got food, I drove on the other side of the road,” little stuff like that. Now if I were to do that in a country where the language wasn’t the same, I would be way less at ease. It wouldn’t be everything new all at once.

New Zealand is also just happy. It’s just a very happy, chill place to be. Everyone I heard from that came back from NZ was like I want to live there. So I figured that’s a pretty good place to go study abroad!

What are your favourite hangout spots in Wellington?

I love the waterfront, I’ll go to the waterfront any time, any day. I go to school in Ohio – it’s landlocked. I love water anyway, so even walking to class and seeing the view (across the harbour) it’s awesome, it makes me smile.

What’s been the best activity that you’ve done?

Oh, that’s hard. There are so many! I would probably say our first trip. We went and hiked Kapakapanui, which was the most disaster of a hike, we didn’t even make it to the summit. But after we had survived the night, we went wine tasting the next day. We all had these tandem bikes we were riding around on. I can’t just go wine tasting casually back home, but here it was like a couple of feet down the road before you turn into the next winery. I just remember laughing the entire time.

What’s the craziest adventure activity you’ve done in New Zealand?

My craziest adventure… I went bungee jumping. I had been sky diving before, and I didn’t think twice before I jumped out of the plane. But bungee jumping, I stood on the edge and my legs just locked. I could not do it. I was like nope, no, I can’t do it. But once I did it, I was so proud of myself. I was like, I don’t want to do it again, I would never do it again, but I’d tell everyone to do it once, because it was worth it.

What friends have made in New Zealand?

I have the Arcadia friends, they’re people I would be friends with back home too, which is comforting. But I’m also friends with my roommates, which I like a lot because they are people that I would never be friends with otherwise. It’s great meeting people who I wouldn’t be friends with normally, I love it, because I feel like I’m breaking out, which is what I wanted to do.

How do you feel you’ve developed as a person and grown during your time here?

I’m the type of person who gets very anxious not knowing what’s going to happen, I like to have a structure and a plan. In the last two years of college I had so much anxiety about dumb stuff. It was always “I have to do this,” in order to do that. It wasn’t like a “want” to.

Whereas here there’s a very different mentality. People aren’t lazy by any means, but they’re literally just more relaxed. It’s such a breath of fresh air to not have that competitive nature. I think just personally I’m more calm and relaxed… and open, I’ll say yes to doing anything! I told my mom, after I graduate I would 100% move back here.

What advice would you give students considering coming to New Zealand for a semester?

Do everything you can.

There are two sides to it. You have to have that motivation to leave on the weekend, to have experiences where you’re not sure how things are going to work out, but at least you’re doing something new. But I also think that Wellington is so cool. It’s small enough but it’s also big enough. Even if I didn’t have all the resources to be leaving on the weekends, just living here is so enough. You’ve got to like, soak in Wellington. Because it’s a very cool place, not many cities are like this. So, soak in Wellington, but do everything you can because New Zealand is awesome.