Manawatū Campus: The "Comprehensive" Review

Toilets

Toilets under the stairs up to MUSA offices - 9/10

This high rating is solely because of a magical contraption known as the Dyson Airblade. I was fortunate enough to bear witness to nearly 12 combined years of engineering education experience demonstrating how even a small amount of water (and hypothetically urine as well), when tipped into the gale force of this machine, can create an impressive spray radius. Massey should be proud to have produced such enquiring minds, and to have installed a machine that stimulates them so.

SGP Building 2nd floor Toilets - 7/10

While nothing special by themselves, the urinals in these toilets have a sticker someone has placed at head height proclaiming “the future is in your hands”, and that is enough to make the visit worthwhile.

Rec Centre Male locker room toilets - 4/10

Personally, I think mirrors should always be situated behind urinals, not to the front or the side, so that there is no risk of looking at yourself pissing, even with your lower half covered by a low wall thing. Also, if you are one who enjoys a private draining of the ol’ snake you probably shouldn’t be pissing in a gym locker room.

Students

Engineers - 10/10

It might be the fact that most engineering students are mildly autistic that makes me think of them as my people in a spiritual way. My Spirit Degree if you will. A large number of my friends from high school, as well as a fair few I met here, are engineers. Always willing to get on the piss, always willing to make inappropriate jokes, and always willing to take totally illogical concepts too far in practical application. I just love them.

Aviation students - 3/10

Picture this. You had ended Year 12 or Year 13 at high school thinking this will be the last time you’ll have to wear a uniform for a long time, until your partner wants to get kinky in the bedroom or the post-graduation job market wants to get kinky with your prospects (hello retail). But wait. You want to be a pilot, and not just that, you want to go to Massey and be the only one on campus forced to wear a uniform for another three years minimum so that everyone will know exactly who you are and how much student debt you are in. This is your life now. You would take comfort in the fact that you will likely be earning three times as much as these uniform-less dorks in half the time, but coronavirus has ruined even that for you.‍

Vet students - can’t stop, won’t stop/10

Just about as messed up in the head as any other student priming to work as a doctor or in the general medical field. Of course, that means they fall right near the top of the list of hardest partying degrees because when they take a break from studying, of course they are going to want to fuck up their sleep schedule even more by going on a bender. I have only heard rumors of what happens at a Vet Happy Hour, and it makes me wish that I and the others in my degree had more culture. Pre-vets obviously aren’t included in this category, because the only ones that are binging are those that already know that they aren’t getting in this year.

Sports science - 7/10

There are three different degrees that sink the hardest and do the dumbest shit when it comes to a night out on town. These are the engineers, vets and last, but certainly not least, sports science students. Very entertaining to be friends with unless they are losing at any given sport in which case, they will become intolerable to be around.

Some Buildings

SGP Building - weird/10

For any new student first entering this building, it is a nightmarish square-shaped hellscape of corridors that just return you back to where you started. The “ground floor” is actually the second floor, and the “basement” is the first floor, and it has classrooms with windows half in the ground that look out at people’s feet on one side. In a second-year film project my group initially considered making a psychological horror centered around this building, but the idea was so good, the universe didn’t allow it to happen. True story.

Psychology and Geography Buildings - 1/10

I think these buildings are a great artistic statement if you consider them to be symbolic representations of the amount of shit the people who use them get for their degree choice.

Vet Tower - 9/10

It makes sense really. You do the most difficult degree and potentially earn the most money over the course of your career to gratefully grant in a trust on your deathbed to the University that molded you into a “productive member of society™”. Therefore, you get the nicest building to learn in. However, knowing all this does nothing whatsoever to reduce my jealousy. 

City Activities

Bowling - 8/10

Bowling is always great, but the massive downside comes from the fact that the place is always busy, likely a consequence of being one of the few recreational activities available in the city of Palmerston North that appeals to students besides drinking. Unfortunately, this means it is prudent to book ahead, and prudence is one of students’ greatest weaknesses.‍

Esplanade - 10/10

This is one thing Wellington and Auckland don’t have and Palmerston North does that I am genuinely proud of. Nothing beats a walk in the rose gardens or along the river for a nice dosage of Mother Nature and you can even pop into the Wildbase Recovery Centre to see some cool endangered animals be rehabilitated. Best of all, it’s all free so there are no downsides.

Foxton Beach - 6/10

I cannot give a higher score because Foxton beach is still a 30 min drive away from Palmerston North, making it not a very convenient activity for Manawatu students low on the petrol money or those who don’t even own a car at all.