The positive impact of students

The north end of Dunedin is abuzz again.

What a positive difference the influx of 15,000 to 20,000 young people makes to the city.

They come from around New Zealand to make their home in Dunedin for three, four, five years, and they enrich life - not just economically but also in sport, culture and general vibrancy.

They come fresh-faced and eager for life and learning. For most, this is their first experience away from home and, inevitably, it is a period of exploration, of growing up, of making new friends.

Most first-years will experience the joys, camaraderie and challenges of communal living in one of the colleges before setting up in flats with the relative independence and the new set of experiences that that brings.

Nearly all will remember the Otago years as among the best of their life.

While the pressure to succeed and pass with high grades has intensified and workloads have increased, university and polytechnic years for those in their late teens and early 20s should include time to pursue interests and to be involved in student and social life.

Developing a rounded person is as important as that extra half a grade.

The claim that students who have come to Otago and taken part make a better fist of life and work than those who stay at home in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington or Christchurch has some truth to it.

To whom would an employer be more likely to give a job? There is also a better ambience and more opportunities for the several hundred students whose families live in Dunedin itself, because of the nature of a university city and of a compact campus full of students from all over.

There are, of course, hazards. Some students come from regimented schools and families where they were always kept up to the mark.

Perhaps, good habits have been instilled. Sometimes, though, students can fall by the wayside when no-one is pushing them.

If they chose to skip lectures and not to study that is their problem.

It is up to them to take full responsibility.

Alcohol, and perhaps drugs, can be a greater temptation, although given the current state of society the chances are many will have developed bad drinking propensities while at school.

Students need to learn that fun can be had without being drunk, and they should all know of the dangers once inhibitions and control have been lost.

The last two decades have witnessed the spread of serious drunkenness among women as well as men, often with unsavoury and regretted consequences.

Dunedin, like so many towns and cities, is less safe than it once was.

Unprovoked street violence is not uncommon, largely from the city's underbelly but also because a macho brutality is more widespread. Similarly, trusting students surrounded by flats of friends and acquaintances have to be aware of the occasional bad apple among their number, and particularly of the outside opportunists who see easy pickings in the campus area.

Being security conscious is essential.

Dunedin students, many from privileged backgrounds, are encouraged to spread their wings and to have fun that does not harm, themselves, others or property.

But the university authorities will not tolerate - and the residents of Dunedin will reject - any attitude from students that they are above the law and can behave in any way they like.

The street troubles of two and three years ago in part displayed an insidious arrogance while they also provided opportunities for outside trouble makers to join in.

They threatened to trash the image of the university and the city and to undermine all the efforts to build a strong reputation for university learning and tertiary life in the city.

There are, in fact, early indications in 2011 that first-year numbers are down, and the continuation of such trends could jeopardise the strength of the university and the city.

In the meantime, however, all is well and Dunedin welcomes both new and returning students. They are so much a part of Dunedin's past, present and future.