Education Abroad Netowrk at Massey Palmerston North

Studying abroad was one of the best decisions I have ever made. And studying abroad with TEAN made it even better. I made some amazing new friends and of course I had many amazing experiences. Living overseas really increases one's awareness of other cultures, more than simply reading about it.

Education Abroad hosts an amazing orientation program before the semester begins, allowing all the students to get to know one another, in addition to getting to know the country in a safe and enjoyable way. The staff there stayed in contact with us throughout the semester, hosting cultural tours in our various host cities as well as an end of semester dinner to check in with us before we departed for home. The TEAN staff is extremely friendly and genuinely interested in getting to know every student. They want to make sure that everyone enjoys their time abroad.

While at Palmy I lived in the on campus hostels and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The hostels there are pretty similar to dorms here except that the rooms are single rooms with a large common room. I loved this setup because it really allowed people to get to know one another. I knew everyone in the building, that was upwards of 50 people! Here I don't even know my own neighbors. Massey also has flats available to the students, each flat with 5-6 individual rooms sharing a common living room, kitchen, and bathroom. I enjoyed all of the housing sites that I visited while there.

I enjoyed the food at Massey as well. The setup of the dining hall was a little unsatisfactory, making it difficult to actually get the food in a timely fashion, but the food quality was certainly better than any dining hall food I've had in this country.

The really great thing about Palmerston North is it's proximity to a lot of surrounding locations. It only takes 45 minutes to get to the beach, two hours to reach Wellington, the capital city, and a 10 minute free bus ride from campus to town. There are a lot of cultural, educational, and just plain fun experiences to be had so close to campus.

Overall I loved my experience in New Zealand and Palmerston North and I would do almost anything to go back. The Education Abroad Network was just the icing on top of the cake for a semester abroad in New Zealand.