Hi everyone! I’m writing this review while already in New Zealand, currently studying an IT program at WelTec.

About choosing the country

We started planning our move to New Zealand after spending about a year in Montenegro. Although it was beautiful, warm, and cozy there, we realized that there were no real prospects. The overall sense of neglect (trash, stray animals, chaos in government offices and banks) became increasingly difficult to ignore. Our dreams and financial possibilities eventually aligned with New Zealand, and we began preparing: intensively studying English and waiting for the enrollment period for the new joint education program.

Online tuition at SPbPU

I liked that it could be combined with intensive English studies (although if you’re also working full-time, it gets much harder—you’d have to fully exclude the person from everyday life). The teachers were responsive and ready to answer all questions. The assignments were moderately difficult—everything was doable and understandable. During final project reviews, they weren’t too strict, but they did ask questions.

They also presented different English accents, which turned out to be very helpful for adapting in NZ! I highly recommend attending all the lectures for that reason alone.

Studying at Weltec

What didn’t I like? Hard to say. Probably the fact that here in NZ we lost the opportunity to take about four courses because we had already completed them online))) But oh well—it makes sense.

A huge advantage of the joint program is that here in NZ we immediately formed a mini-group with people from our cohort to discuss all academic matters and work on group projects. Although that’s partly a downside too—your English doesn’t improve as much when you mostly interact with people from your own language group.

Features of studying in New Zealand

Be prepared to really work your brain. You’ll need to go through large volumes of academic literature to find the right information, learn how to organize it, and draw conclusions. ChatGPT is instantly flagged here by automated tools, but you can use it as a kind of advisor (like, “Here’s an abstract — help me understand what the authors meant”). Still, you need to double-check everything it gives you, and then write your own version.

Work with Kiwi Education

Thanks to Serj for the quick responses. If not for him, we wouldn’t have made it into the cohort we eventually joined. He sorted everything out fast, answered all our questions, and accepted the payment. Big thanks for the ongoing support via chat, calls, and everything else. I remember how important it was to hear from people “over there”—to be sure they were really studying and alive and well.

Thank you, Ksenia! Truly, a deep bow of gratitude. She taught me how to write all those explanation letters in great detail, helped me understand the main principle (be honest and human), and I prepared the partner’s documents with only 2–3 mistakes. Ksenia responded very quickly and was super helpful. Under tight deadlines, that meant a lot.

If anyone has questions, feel free to message me on Telegram @Maljana. But it’s better to catch me in the group chats (I’m in nearly all NZ-related chats), since I have spam protection in private messages.

Education and immigration to New Zealand for IT professionals