After walking these halls for three years, my friends and I have noticed that there are indeed some stereotypes associated with each of the faculties we see at the University…but the question is do they MAKE sense or do we BREAK this particular stereotype because it is far from true?
After yarning with various students from all these faculties, I have come to some conclusions about these stereotypes. I apologise in advance for the flaming of your faculty & know that whether these are actually true or not is still open and up for debate…but hey I’m sure the many people I talked to are somewhat valid so let’s have a peek!
ENGINEERING
The faculty which arguably has the best review each year and probably the most stereotypes associated with it too…let’s hear some of these about the ‘people in STEM’ as I like to call them.
MAKE:
- The faculty that doesn’t really know how to dress. Bit of a fashion disaster – it’s the Microsoft T-shirts, grandfather flannels, huge black backpacks and jeans for me. Big slay with the Sony WHX1000-MX4 or MX5 headphones though.
- Most of them are nerds. Again, true. From what I’ve gathered from students…common hobbies include; gaming, coding interesting things and on occasion suddenly deciding to become a gym bro.
- Engineering dudes have zero game. Sometimes apparently they don’t even take showers. Yet they can probably make and code a literal game…perhaps some real life coding is needed my bro?
BREAK:
- That there aren’t hot girls—firstly there are and secondly what’s more hot than a freaking woman in STEM?! Girl boss energy not gonna lie—they serve and leave no crumbs behind. Apparently there are plenty and they are a minority too so boys you better up your game (no not the one you’re coding, literally your game).
- Engineering is like high school maths and physics. News flash, especially for the first years with false hope…it is not. There are much wider areas of where you can go so keep your eyes peeled and aim high.
LAW
Moving on to a faculty full of ego and heads held high…it’s the boost of unnecessary or perhaps necessary pride whenever some stranger says; Oh wow you do a LAW degree at Auckland?!
MAKE:
- The inflated egos. You will never find a law student who does not mention at least sixteen times a week that they in fact, do a law degree. Thank you Sherlock Holmes for this ever so surprising revelation about yourself. Fair enough considering the PTSD they go through (totally not a biased opinion here).
- They’re overcommitted. It’s the endless clubs, random extracurriculars and running around on campus for me. I swear sometimes we come to campus on a day full of lectures and by the end wouldn’t have attended a single one because we were ‘too busy’ doing other things.
BREAK:
- That law is easier than people make it out to be. Students confirmed that the stress, panic and difficulty is rather significant so next time you try sit through a law lecture and report back.
- Law students do all their readings / love to read. Um sure buddy, go tell that to the hundreds of law students who probably have not touched a reading since first year…
- Full of extroverts who love to argue—like every other faculty even though we all love a good debate, there’s your classic personality mixes there too.
MEDICINE x HEALTH SCI x SCIENCE
Most people would pretty much say you’ve chosen not to live laugh love pursuing this path, and are more on a steadfast route to #die cry hate. Nevertheless, you slay.
MAKE:
- All med kids are elitist. Harsh but true, it’s definitely ‘I’m out to get you,’ over ‘let’s form a supportive community,’ especially for those first year pre-med students.
- Nursing students have VERY aesthetic instagrams. Time to become influencers I reckon.
- Optometry students always dress well. It’s the well thought out fits for us, like chill you’re off to a lecture.
- Med student’s drink HARD—‘like chill out do you even know what liver cirrhosis is?’—a med kid.
- Science students are more chill than med students. Usually this is true, they tend to be a lot more easygoing.
BREAK:
- That med school kids have no life. I mean sure they’re drowning in piles of gosh knows what but surprisingly enough a lot of them are so used to that stress—they end up juggling ten thousand other things as well…crazy. Well at least the non first years.
- They’re an absolute mess physically mentally emotionally spiritually. While somewhat true, a lot of them because of stress are forced to be hyper organised, OCD and look after their appearance etc quite well.
- Science is all experiments. It’s not, there’s a lot more to it and it isn’t like high school either.
ARTS/FINE ARTS
A lot of people don’t even understand the difference between arts and fine arts. So no it’s not just painting, dance etc… These people always tend to stay back after their degrees for phd’s, masters, so on and so forth—now whether that’s because of fear of the real world and getting a job or attachment issues with uni who knows?
MAKE:
- Not that much different to any other degree; it’s got its own share of struggles and wins.
- Probably one of the best dressed faculties. True, you can spot an arts kid a mile away because they’re always rocking their own style whatever that might be.
BREAK:
- Art is for dropouts and is super easy so the students aren’t particularly smart. I’d LOVE to see anyone who says this try to do an arts degree without miserably failing…it’s the STEM students who do art gen eds struggling for me…like no honey.
- Art is one specific thing…so many things come under arts, have a stalk of the UoA website.
BUSINESS SCHOOL
Ah yes, the home of the, ‘commerce bro’s.’ UoA’s pride and joy, that ONE building everyone knows and loves, named after the businessman who just casually donated 7.5 million dollars to the business faculty.
MAKE:
- Commerce bro’s have their heads up their asses. True according to every single person I talked to. Maybe in your next checkout of a bitcoin investment or theoretical analysis of the stock market, grab some humility on the way out too yeah?
- They all want to be rich. Who doesn’t?
BREAK:
- Business kids do jackshit and it is very very easy to pass. #bare minimum vibes. While some agree, many don’t realise commerce kids actually need to do a lot of shit and most other faculties probably wouldn’t last writing a commerce essay with the stupidly unnecessary referencing and writing guidelines. This could depend on the major, so perhaps up to debate.
GLOBAL STUDIES
MAKE:
- They show up to classes but have no idea how to explain to someone what their degree actually encompasses.
- They’re good at languages, usually yes… although you will get the one student who does not know past the level of Spanish in Dora the Explorer.
BREAK:
- They all want to be Prime Minister. No.
- Dropout degree, they won’t get jobs. False, they will especially in the evolving world of business, its a standout. Different, yet needed.