I have been sitting with my ideas since Grace Togneri generously offered her column to me — perhaps over two months ago. Rewriting and rewriting, it felt as if I wasn’t getting anywhere.
Yet despite these struggles, this challenge is a true privilege: the responsibility of a taonga that I do not take for granted. Over the past year Grace has shaped this column into something genuinely special. I can only hope to meet these expectations, building upon the foundation she has laid for me.
Having finished high school, students my age are faced with a new year where there is no safety net of familiarity to fall back into. Many of us will be starting at university, others taking on new jobs, others travelling overseas.
For my friends and I, the past summer has been a waiting game; anticipation accumulating, with no straightforward output. Yet, despite how I spent year 13 bursting to leave, as soon as the calendar ticked over to 2026 doubts began to grow.
And as I prepare to move out of home this weekend, I’ve been asking myself: can I actually do this?
While it is true that I have outgrown my school uniform, I still hesitate. If I can’t manage university life, where am I left? An empty grey area, floating between two expectations where I can’t go back, but I can’t progress either.
We all have this romanticised version of fresher year dancing in our minds, but as the semester draws near, so does the reality of change that it brings.
It’s a significant step to go from a small high school community to meeting hundreds of new people from across Aotearoa and beyond. Having to put yourself out there takes a level of bravery that, at the best of times, feels scarce.
The reality that we just simply don’t know what will happen is frightening. Embracing and accepting this unknown, even more so.
Yet from within these doubts, a certainty emerges with increasing clarity. Growing up in Dunedin has provided me with the reassurance I have been seeking. That safety net that I believed I had lost has only extended, now encapsulating this community as a whole.
Over this summer, I’ve visited campus a few times, attempting to familiarise myself with the grounds before the students return in their swarms. Tackling Unipol for the first time; walking through the central library; visiting the AskOtago desk for assistance and reassurance with my chosen papers — an intimidation beyond anything else, but simultaneously, a steady comfortability is provided. I am lucky to be moving simply to the other side of town.
I can also see, in hindsight, how school gave us a firm foundation beneath our feet. All that hard work over the past years to make it through high school will become evident as we navigate this year.
Those long stressful nights studying, or even simply turning up to school on a drab winter’s morning, built a resilience in each of us. It is this strength that we will take with us into semester 1.
By the end of this year, we will all be able to look back and find those small ways in which we have grown to become better people. Shaped by the education we will receive, the new ways in which we will learn to see our world and society, led by the lecturers and residential assistants and so many other students — who remain strangers to us right now but will soon become our role models and support systems.
I hope that through this column I will be able to communicate how Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka will enable the growth and flourishment of each of our characters.
As of now, the part upon which I focus is whakaihu waka: the "bow of the canoe" which breaks the waves, leaving a path for us to follow. Ōtākou is an amalgamation of all who have attended, and all who will.
There is confidence to be gained from those who have gone before us, much like how I knew I had Grace to rely upon when starting this column. Not only have the experiences of past students created the opportunities we have today, but we are also reassured of our own individual strength.
To all my fellow freshers: take a deep breath, we can do this. And to all other students: please, don’t egg us during O Week.
• Eleanor Wong is a Dunedin first-year University of Otago student. Her column replaces that of Grace Togneri, whom we thank and wish all the best for the future.
