Researchers Want YOUR Poop!

Posted 3:01pm Friday 19th August 2022

On Wednesday, 10 August, a mass email was sent out by Dr. Dominic Agyei in the Food Science Department. It was asking students for their poop. The email was objectively hilarious, opening with the line: “We scratched our heads for a while but could not think of a nicer way to say it than Read more...

AI is more – and less – scary than you think

Posted 2:50pm Friday 19th August 2022

In this issue, every piece of art was initially designed by an AI. We used DALL·E 2 and Midjourney to create concept art, and then had our artists go back over that art to stylise it. If we learned anything from that process, it’s that AI won’t be replacing artists any time soon. Read more...

First Joint Māori-Pasifika Leadership Hui Held

Posted 1:41pm Monday 15th August 2022

Last weekend, Te Rōpū Māori and the Otago Pacific Island Students’ Association joined forces to tautoko the tauira leaders of tomorrow. The kaupapa (event), the first student-led initiative of its kind at Otago, was attended by over 100 tauira (students) and various guest Read more...

You Don’t Have to be This Poor

Posted 1:23pm Monday 15th August 2022

I’m going to make this exceptionally clear: you are not poor because you’ve made poor life choices. You are poor because there’s a student poverty crisis.  It’s not like you enjoy it, right? Do you enjoy being in one of the most impoverished communities in Aotearoa? Read more...

Paganism, Patriotism and Piety: What ever happened to the American Pie?

Posted 7:21pm Friday 5th August 2022

The reason America doesn’t have mince pie is as simple as it is completely absurd: it was banned, multiple times, by religious zealots. See, America did have mince pie. And they totally frothed it - mince pie was called “Unquestionably the monarch of pies”, an “American Read more...

Students Hoard Minion Daddies

Posted 7:03pm Friday 5th August 2022

Last week, Critic Te Arohi was sent a Snapchat of a student’s room. It was covered wall-to-wall with the Minion Daddy centrefold from our sex issue. Interior design experts Josh and K stopped by to explain their life choices. Josh and K are both first years at Aquinas. K had just moved into Read more...

Students Upset over Lack of Recordings

Posted 6:58pm Friday 5th August 2022

Lecture recordings are not mandatory at the University of Otago. A debate sparked in COSC204 provides an example of the problems this can create. Associate Professor Andrew Trotman’s decision not to publish recorded lectures led to a lengthy series of emails with his COSC204 students Read more...

Editorial: I went to the US and it was a fucking shambles

Posted 6:52pm Friday 5th August 2022

I got to go home to the States for the first time since Covid broke out. And lemme tell ya, things are not going well. Nothing summed up the trip better than a lady in Des Moines, Iowa, who told me how the election was stolen and then followed it up with “oh but I love New Zealand, the Swiss Read more...

Free Speech Debate Looking for Student Voices

Posted 1:51pm Sunday 31st July 2022

Your student president has pulled out of a “free speech panel” hosted by the Free Speech Union (FSU) on 17 August, citing “pressing work and study commitments”. The FSU has previously faced controversy for promoting and platforming views critics say are “extremist, Read more...

OUSA Exec Breach Own Policy

Posted 1:50pm Sunday 31st July 2022

The Student Executive board for OUSA have breached their own accountability policy, according to minutes from the 14 July meeting this year.  All Exec members are required to submit weekly breakdowns of what they’ve been up to, to provide a record of their work and also to prove that Read more...