The beginning of the day didn’t start as planned, our bus was totally out of commission and we had to WALK there. Now, the walk wasn’t necessarily FAR, but living in Ohio my entire life has helped me get used to FLAT areas, something that Wellington is NOT. However, it was nice to get a bigger tour of the city in its entirety (when we went to the gardens we just took the trolly-thing up and didn’t walk much)
I believe the experience that we had at the marae in the Vicotoria, University of Wellington was the more thorough and explained than the marae at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (see, it can’t be PERFECT). In this marae there were tons of carvings. Towards the back, it was expland, were the earlier gods and the front had stories that wer about the area. The marae had a “pole” for each area so that Maori, regardless of where they are from in New Zealand, feel at home. Something interesting to note, each pole was carved in the style of the area, and tell a story.
In the marae we all had to stand up an introduce ourselves. I felt this important to bring up but of the WAY we were told to introduce ourselves. In the Maori culture, they often say what river and mountain they are from, talking about their heritage FIRST, and then ending the introduction with their family name rather than their first name (something not used). So I’m from Finland and England from the Sims side and Germany and France from the Hoover side, I currently reside in Ohio, and my name is Claire. I really thought it was cool that the hertage had such an emphasis.
Career Development:
Note: Liz Medford from the career center was originally from New York so she has both a United States and New Zealand perspective.
Still a very new concept in NEW Zealand (see what I did there… NEW, NEW). However, with the governments press on education outcomes, they are hoping this will be something that is going to grow in the future. Victoria is the first institution that I feel truly has a grasp on career services and it’s importance in higher education.
Something I found interesting is that Victoria goes around to other campuses to help with career counseling (so more than just Victoria). Not only that, but they work with prospective students, current students, and graduated students.
Although Holland’s theory is something we often use in the United States, it is controversial in New Zealand because of how it fits with the Maori and Pacfic population (just like my concerns on my pre-reflection assignment). However, they have implemented a program called future selves, a tool developed by Geoff Plimmer (works in the Victoria Business school and developed this tool for his PhD).
http://www.futureselves.com/
"FutureSelves programme is a quick, effective way to engage clients and build a positive future. It is designed for busy practitioners who must cover a lot of ground quickly."
From what I’ve gathered, in our equivalent of high school, students are not forced to take English and math and only do so if they wish to go on to college. I wonder if this is why career counseling (or at least the need for career counseling) is see as something unneeded or rare. I say this because a student is having to decide much sooner (like in high school) whether they want to go off to college, thus, figuring out their plan much sooner (at least this may be the view they have). However, it’s far from the true. The woman we met with explained that career counseling is in HIGH demand and there are MANY undecided students who end up doing something they don’t want to do because they were stuck choosing so soon (and they are only given financial help for so long).
Counseling
The counseling center at this institution is very similar to counseling centers in the United States. The physican and counseling center are in the same place so by going it isn’t apparent to others that students are visiting the counseling center or the doctors office. The type of counseling is solution focused because it is the quickest counseling method (Which is needed because the number of sessions a student can have is limited to 5 sessions per trimester)
The counseling center at Victoria has many of the same problems as counseling centers in the United states: Demand exceeds ability to supply and they are booked back by at least a month at a time. Although this is definitely an issue, I argue that it’s still a good problem to have. Often there is such a stigma on receiving mental health help, I suppose I’m happy to see that people are seeking the help they need. However, being booked back to far does not speak well for people who are in immediate crisis. To aid this they have a counselor that is on duty for 4 hours a day and they have emergency sessions for people that are in danger of suicide.
I was happy to see that counseling was free for students and a $50 fee for international students. I now that BGSU offers free counseling, but Owens still has nothing. Owens used to have one mental health counselor for all of campus and now we have none (I’m not sure having ONE would make a different but I think it would speak bounds about how/if Owens cares about their student population). The demographics of students that attend Owens is high demand and we have NOTHING in place if a student is in need. Referral services are ready shown, and none of the academic advisors are trained in how to deal with any sort of crisis, nor told who should be contacted (all information that advisors give is found on their own). Seeeing that it is possible to have free counseling (wellington, Auckaland etc) or referral services in place (Bay of Plenty Polytechnic), it makes me angry that Owens can’t or ISN’T doing more.
Overall I really enjoyed Victoria. I like that it had a big campus feel (like Auckland) but didn’t feel big. Again, just like Wellington felt familiar, Victoria just felt familiar and safe. I also liked that even though they are a bigger institution they didn’t talk about it or brag. It was a great experience, and I believe that I lived in New Zealand I would want to attend this institution.
