Jul 143 min read

Editorial: Yeah Man, I'm Totally Not Burnt Out!

Please do not look at my unopened emails please please pl—

EDITORIAL | MAHI

Written by Liam Hansen (they/them) | @liamhanse.n | Editor-in-Chief

Illustrated by Gabbie De Baron (she/her) | @gabizzlesizzle | Graphic Designer

Nau mai hoki mai e hoa ma - welcome back to campus for semester two! Even though I swear we went on break two days ago, alas - we are all, collectively, back in the fucking building again.

We all would have loved to have spent the break taking an actual break and decompressing from the hellish conclusion of the first semester. Americans get to spend their uni breaks either existing in a Christmas winter wonderland, or sitting on beaches with their hot and diverse group of mates as they drink White Claw and ignore their upcoming election.

Unless you’re a rich twat (or my partner on a working holiday <3), you probably weren’t in California over their summer. You spent it in Aotearoa, and you probably spent it working. Maybe you were preparing for the next semester, picking up extra shifts to make rent, or desperately searching for an internship. Maybe you had to remain in a state of limbo at AUT because your office is located at WG704 and every break you get from your 9-5 is heading off to another class at this godforsaken university. Maybe that’s just a me problem, though.

So many of us are going into our final semester of uni, and shaking with bated breath in fear of what comes after we graduate. Theoretically, the time, stress, and thousands of dollars sunk into tertiary education should be enough to guarantee you a stable job in your field or industry once you leave uni - but often if your years studying aren’t supplemented with internships, volunteering opportunities, and hours spent networking - you’re kind of left to the dust, especially if your degree is in the arts, communications, or (god forbid) business schools.

Unfortunately, universities aren’t really here to help you get a job. AUT is first and foremost a business, and although we’ll be hearing from the AUT power list of chancellors in our news editor, Caeden’s, piece, the truth is that none of their admirable goals and aspirations could be brought to fruition if the institution went bankrupt. Without sustainable government support, making money has to be the priority for universities. The same goes for most media institutions, art galleries, film studios, and anything else deemed unimportant by the coalition government. Priorities have to go to tax cuts for landlords, I guess.

There isn’t enough space for a meaningful kōrero about the impacts of capitalism across Aotearoa without being mind-numbingly annoying, so we’ve curated this issue to provide examples of folks working within the system to break it, like Jennifer Cheuk, stories of students adapting to new work environments and burnout, and a couple classic local listens from myself and Max to break up the economic dread. Hopefully, you can take something away from this issue that makes you slightly less stressed about the inevitable doom that faces us all. Apologies if you came for a bunch of commie rants - Just find me drunk on the side of Karangahape Road this weekend, and I’ll satiate your bizarre need for leftist mansplaining.