Three days after Mr Campbell finished the final exam of his politics degree at the University of Otago, he heard through the media 98 papers had been stolen from the university's exam office. Then, he got a phone call.
''On Tuesday morning, the politics department called me up and informed me it was one of my exams that had been stolen.''
Mr Campbell (23) was told he had several options, including resitting the exam, writing an essay, or taking his average mark for internal assessments throughout the semester. He went for the internal mark.
''There isn't really a great option for me or others to resit the exam.''
Plus, he had already ''checked out'' of exams at that point, he said.
''I was just hoping to get it over and done with.''
Mr Campbell thought the university was handling the situation well.
''The university's been pretty excellent, to be honest. I think this is the first time this has happened ever ... They're doing damage control, and they reacted pretty fairly.''
Mr Campbell said he was ''not really fussed'' about the exam papers being stolen. He was now hoping to move on to postgraduate study
and his mark in the politics paper would not matter.
''A pass is a pass for me at this point.''
But he would have preferred to get his exam mark, because he thought he did well.
''It's just frustrating to put so much time into [the exam] and have someone mess with it.''
And he could imagine some of his classmates might not feel as relaxed about the theft as he did.
If it had been a postgraduate paper that did matter ''I would've been stressing out quite a lot more''.
''It's quite a different situation for me.''
