New Cheap Lunch Spot Opens Next to Campus

Posted 5:30pm Sunday 1st March 2026

Students may have noticed a new food truck operating out of the Museum Llawn, staffed with broad smiles and piling $5 Love Feasts onto plates. Jane Beecroft caught up with Critic Te Ārohi to discuss the mahi behind Krisha Kai, as well as the menu. “Samosas, smoothies, hot chips, apple Read more...

Otago Alumni Creates Flatchat: A Site That Lets You Read and Write Flat Reviews

Posted 4:56pm Sunday 1st March 2026

Ryan Cole is a 2022 University of Otago software engineering graduate, and the creator of Flatchat. He “really enjoyed” his time at Otago, and had some “fun and interesting” flatting experiences – including some more gnarly ones. “That’s where the idea for Read more...

Editorial: Where did all the pages go?

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 1st March 2026

Last year, Gryffin and I were faced with one of the first tough decisions we’d need to make as Co-Editors. Critic is funded by OUSA, and due to the increasing cost pressures they face, Critic changing to a fortnightly publication was pretty much all but confirmed. We fought hard to make sure Read more...

OUSA $4 Lunch SURGES to $5 Lunch

Posted 10:20am Monday 23rd February 2026

Cheap lunch over in OUSA’s Clubs & Socs building has been a mainstay of campus life for decades now. Brought to you by St Kilda’s Tandoree Garden, $4 Lunch has looked the same since 2022. However, four years later, 2026 brings a change in price as well as menu: a $1 price increase, Read more...

The Changing Game: 30 Years of The Highlanders

Posted 3:22pm Sunday 22nd February 2026

Most will remember the first Sunday morning they woke up in their single bed at their first-year hall. For many, it probably felt like coming up for air after holding your breath, with O-Week stretching out in front of you. Endless, scarfie possibility. With so much going on during orientation, many Read more...

Editorial: An Obituary to $4 Lunch (2021-2025)

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 22nd February 2026

It was the first day of Ori last week, and underneath the (short-lived) sun of a packed-tent city, our shit was rocked. After innocently opening an Instagram story from our friends OUSA Clubs & Socs, $4 Lunch had been unceremonially rebirthed as $5 Lunch. What seemed like the last bastion of Read more...

Polytech Proposes Switch To Telehealth Student Health Services

Posted 10:20pm Saturday 4th October 2025

On the 26th of September, the Otago Polytech advised kaimahi, ākonga, the Otago Polytech Students Association, stakeholders, and the media (except for Critic – we found out through a student) of a proposal to move to a telehealth set up for their student health provision for the 2026 Read more...

Everything That’s Happened Since 2019

Posted 6:21pm Sunday 21st September 2025

CW, TW: Discussions of sexual violence.  Sexual harm is prevalent, invasive, and underacknowledged on campus, whether we want to admit it or not.  Three weeks into the academic year, Thursdays in Black (TiB) – the Otago branch of a national student-led sexual harm prevention Read more...

Thursdays in Black Hosts ‘What I Was Wearing’ Exhibit

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 21st September 2025

Content Warning: Sexual violence, child sexual abuse, rape, intimate partner violence Following their recent success in the second annual Sex Quiz fundraiser, the Thursdays in Black exec held the What I Was Wearing exhibit in the Main Common Room last week between Wednesday and Read more...

Execrable: Refusals to Resign & Letters Abound

Posted 6:44pm Sunday 7th September 2025

Push For Jett Groshinski’s Resignation In bombshell news, Political Representative Jett Groshinski was asked to resign by two-thirds of the OUSA Executive at their most recent meeting on Thursday, August 28th. The Exec told Critic Te Ārohi that the decision was “not made Read more...