The university supported the endeavors of various secondary schools. One such program running at the time was the Young Enterprise Scheme wherein students pitch brilliant ideas which have the potential to be future businesses

The city campus is very modern with good infrastructure. It's right in the heart of the CBD area. AUT is a very good university to study at.

Great studying environment and the atmosphere on orientation day was awesome. A warm welcome back to formal study for me after an absence of 30 years.

Overall, pretty good university. But, the City Campus is quite small and doesn’t provide the traditional university vibe that I was looking for. It feels more like a large high school than a university, and this has been a significant disappointment for me.

Any practical skills they claimed to teach us barely scratched the surface. I did a design degree, thinking I would equip myself with all the tools necessary for the job. But they chose to focus heavily on the abstract side, which I understand to some extent, as creativity is crucial for being a designer. However, sometimes being creative can be as simple as making something look nice and pretty for the sake of it. They wouldn’t accept that though. They wanted a deep story behind everything, which often requires you to lie. For example, I can't choose the color red simply because I think it looks good in my design. Instead, I have to come up with some elaborate reason, and those who lie the best tend to get the best grades. Why focus on abstract ideas that are so high in the sky, when the most basic tools and knowledge required to bring those abstract ideas to life aren’t taught properly? Don’t waste thousands of dollars to go to this university just to listen to them preach all this impractical nonsense, only to end up having to learn the tools yourself. No wonder their ranking dropped from the top 2 in New Zealand to the bottom. They deserve it.