Otago Polytechnic Auckland International Campus - Auckland CBD

I am a current student at this institution. I can only express my experience while studying a postgrad diploma. Honestly, it does not qualify to receive even 1 star. Otago only cares to recruit students to make a profit, and after you get recruited - they throw you under the bus and don't care about your wellbeing. Even a tutor that school provides is unable and uninterested to help, as - "everything is common sense". This institution should not even offer a Postgrad diploma course. Almost half of my class already withdrawn from this so-called school and I am sure that the half that is left - will do the same with time. It is a shame that people come to this school with good intentions and high hopes and only get burned by this institution. Honestly, I would never recommend this school to anyone, even my worst enemy. Otago, get it together and make a change or face the consequences.

We are a group of OPAIC students. Among us there are postgraduate students that are in Block 4, Block 3, Block 2, and Block 1. We's like to share our experiences here briefly and our main purpose is to inform any new student who is planning to come to OPAIC for a postgraduate qualification. 1) This place is not Otago Polytechnic. It is called Otago Polytechnic Auckland International Campus. We here believe this campus is established to take the money of international students and not providing them with "Otago Polytechnic" quality services. 2) We all experienced Block 1 at OPAIC, we all in agreement that the only students who were lucky were students who started in Jan 2019, when there were two good lecturers were teaching the two first courses. It seems to us OPAIC does not have any rules or regulations in hiring and firing staff. They keep changing lecturers. Good lecturers leave quickly. There are a lot of rumours that the CEO decides who to be hired. We all witnessed horrible lecturers who made us suffer are still here and good lecturers left for no apparent reasons. We believe it is just NZ context, being so small people leave without questioning the employment systems of companies because they do not want to be known as "a trouble maker". 3) There were only a couple of good lecturers in postgraduate. They teach, they guide, they provide you with feedback, they actually care for you to learn and as a result students pass or eagerly take the course again if they fail. Many lecturers have no idea of the teaching system. They waste class time and our money. They put all the work on the shoulders of students, we do not get the chance to find a part time job because of the workload and end of the day we fail or pass with a bare minimum and interestingly we really never know what were our shortcomings. 4) There is absolutly no system for complains. Everyday you go there you hear a disaster. Students have learned to take their complaints to the CEO all the time and funnily they get what they want. There is no organizational charts and there are so many discrepancies. 5) In terms of support. We had a lecturer we would take any questions to and get an answer or a strategy to find an answer. Now that this person is gone and also the support. Peer tutor does not have the skill to help us. The library is inadequate. We do not know what the student success role is. The person who sits in the library is not a librarian nor a person who can help us with anything. There are other language teachers to help but they do not have content knowledge. There are people other than our lecturers who give feedback on our assignments and they are as useless as "ok" , "yes". 6) We have sent several emails to NZQA, but haven't received any reply and we have not seen any improvements in this place. 7) A message to the senior management team: Only we as students can learn and only we at this time can reflect on our experiences. You can intervene, you can involve helpers to assist us and fix this and that superficially, but they only have access to our assignments. This schools' problem is that the top management and we mean the CEO does not want to listen to students' feelings. Instead they got people who graduated years ago to come and write 5 star reviews. This is so funny. We also chose this school because our friends graduated from this school happily with minimum efforts. But it seems that you suddenly decided to be compliant with NZ quality education but brought your unqualified friends to teach highly specialised courses. We do not recommend this place.

I was studying at Otago Polytechnic in 2017 doing my grad diploma in Sales and Marketing. Thanks much to Dave Bibby who was one of the most inspirational professors on the course. His lessons were always fun and informative. However, the student success team was mostly a challenge to access, very less useful. I was chasing them to get some help with an internship.

I graduated from Otago Polytechnic at the end of last year. I had an incredible and positive experience in my uni. The lectures are professionals in their field and always answer questions and spare additional time for student support and development. My course was in an IT major and I learned new things and approaches because the program is cutting edge and contains all new trends as Data Science, CHI, etc. The staff also friendly and helpful, I got much help especially in the beginning when I was fresh to the country and frequently needed a piece of advice and the right person always was there. I am happy that I was studying here and every time remember my uni with much appreciations. Thank you to my teachers and people who work there very hard and help students every day, you made my life brighter and definitely open new doors! All the best!

I love to study here. The lecturers and staffs were excellent and made me feel at home. The tuition fee is reasonable compared to the well-known uni. It's great because I can get the same level of qualification with fewer costs. I know some of the students are not able to graduate from this institution, but hey, If you're not studying, don't expect to graduate. It's not fair for other students who study hard. If you guys want to earn money, don't blame OP if you fail. You came to OP for study not working.

The student success team of the school is very supportive and helpful . Generally . The school provides students with very good resources and facilities . They courses offered by the school are very practical with lots of focus on real life examples without compromising the academic integrity . Overall experiences have exceeded my expectations. Thank you Otago polytechnic AIC

If you are considering doing the Apiculture course DO NOT. None of this course has been beneficial. Dates, zooms and practical days constantly change at last minute. The tutor Kim NEVER replies to emails, texts, calls. She tells us that she is first a Bee Keeper second a teacher. She is not coping as a teacher and in turn gives us a terrible learning experience. We paid to Kim's personal bank account for our Nucs (Queen and Worker Bees) but we never received a receipt. Who knows if she's pocking our money but it all seems very wrong! If I could drop out of this course I would; but I want my bees.

Great Apiculture course with Kim. Loved having her as a tutor! Great balance between theory and practical. Unfortunately Covid interfered with some of the course, but that was just the way it was with everyone. Kudus to Kim for how she handled it!