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Speaker 1: Back to the university's new idea aiming at slowing the

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Speaker 1: brain drain. Wellington, Otigo and aut have teamed up to

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Speaker 1: launch Uni Exchange Artia ro Let's second year undergrad swap

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Speaker 1: cities for a semester. Scholarships will be available, along with

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Speaker 1: contributions towards the travel course costs, et cetera. Nick Smith

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Speaker 1: is the VIC University of Wellings and Vice Chancellor anders

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Speaker 1: with us.

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Speaker 2: Nick Morning, Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Does a semester scratch a niche? If you have a

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Speaker 1: niche to scratch, I.

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Speaker 2: Think semester gives you an opportunity to engage in a

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Speaker 2: different environment and to have an entirely different experience and

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Speaker 2: a new university in a different city.

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Speaker 1: Is this driven by if you've run it up one

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Speaker 1: hundred students everyone and go, oh great, idea, let's do it.

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Speaker 2: That's driven by probably two things. You know. One is,

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Speaker 2: as you said in your intro, you know, we as

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Speaker 2: a nation need to retain our best and brightest and

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Speaker 2: we can actually offer a real diversity of experience within

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Speaker 2: the fantastic universities that we have. And it's also driven

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Speaker 2: by the fact that you know, as the universities we

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Speaker 2: haven't always worked as well together as we could have,

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Speaker 2: and this seemed like a unique opportunity to do so.

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Speaker 1: It was everyone on board. Did you approach this with

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Speaker 1: everyone and only three came to the party? Or is

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Speaker 1: this scalable if it demand dictates?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been working with both OTAGA and AUTO for

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Speaker 2: a little while now around a range of things, sharing buildings,

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Speaker 2: sharing infrastructure, joint teaching, which we do with Otago. But

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Speaker 2: the program is fundamentally scalable. The program is one where

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Speaker 2: ultimately we could have New Zealand students spending a semester

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Speaker 2: at another New Zealand university across the whole country.

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Speaker 1: Right, and what about these contributions you make for the tangibles?

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Speaker 1: How real is that? Is it fifty cents or something

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Speaker 1: that would actually make you move?

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Speaker 2: It's designed to be no cost to the student, right,

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Speaker 2: So we organize accommodation for them and we give them

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Speaker 2: enough to pay for travel. So the decision should be

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Speaker 2: made on what they want to do and the experience

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Speaker 2: they want to have, rather than a financial barrier to

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Speaker 2: get over fantastic.

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Speaker 1: You happen to be the perfect bloke at the perfect time.

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Speaker 1: We've just been discussing is a degree. If you get

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Speaker 1: a degree and then get a master's is that two

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Speaker 1: separate degrees or one degree?

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Speaker 2: Technically it is two separate degrees.

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Speaker 1: So technically in a quiz in contest, you would be

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Speaker 1: correct in saying it's two degrees. Don't think of them

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Speaker 1: as one.

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Speaker 2: Yes, you would have two different degrees. You would have

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Speaker 2: a bachelor undergraduate degree which you would right beside your

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Speaker 2: name if you chose to, and then you would have

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Speaker 2: a master's degree which you would do the same thing.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff, Nick, I appreciate your expertise very much on

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Speaker 1: both subjects. Nick Smith, Victoria, University of Wellington and Vice Chancellor.

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Speaker 1: So Sam says to me during the break, having said

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Speaker 1: to me, well he's got a degree. If you've got

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Speaker 1: a degree, if you actually got a degree, Oh he

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Speaker 1: has got a degree. It's not a diploma from the

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Speaker 1: polytech or anything. It's proper degree. Is it okay? Anyway?

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Speaker 1: So he says to me, I actually, technically I am wrong.

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Speaker 1: So this is how I get hung out to dry

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Speaker 1: in front of hundreds of thousand people every morning. He goes, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: it's not two degrees at all, And I go, now

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Speaker 1: I come on the radio and go, tell you what,

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Speaker 1: It's not two degrees, because of course Glenn and I

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Speaker 1: have no degrees, and I Abelli went to school. We've

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Speaker 1: just counted mine again and it's exactly zero. I've got

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Speaker 1: zero two. So we rely on the educated members of

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Speaker 1: the staff to help us out. And then so having

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Speaker 1: gone out there and go, oh, it's not two degrees

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Speaker 1: at all. No, no idiot would think it's two degrees,

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Speaker 1: then you go, actually, technically I'm wrong.

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Speaker 2: It's worse than looking up stuff on AI.

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Speaker 1: It's unbelievable, isn't it. I don't know where we're at.

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Speaker 1: I'm probably going to have to end up apologizing to

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Speaker 1: our friend at the university with his fifteen degrees and

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Speaker 1: his sixty seven thousand dollars salary before I know it.

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Speaker 1: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.