WEEKLY NEWS

Students feel guilty for buying from Shein

Tegan Jaggard she/her

Some alternative students feel they have no other option but to turn to fast fashion, especially if they are plus size.

Many students feel guilty for turning to drop-shipping companies like Shein who use unethical labour practices.

Cameron McCausland-Taylor is a third-year creative writing student and shops from Shein fairly regularly, but not just for the prices.

“They actually offer trendy clothes for fat people in a range of different sizes, with their Shein Fit+ range going up to a size 34.”

However, she expressed guilt for buying from Shein.

“When I shop at Shein, I feel that pang of guilt, knowing its ethical and environmental impacts. But there’s not many alternatives out there for someone my size. If I could look and feel cute at a reasonable price in a sustainable way, I would.”

McCausland-Taylor shops at other brands that don’t rely on dropshipping like ASOS, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing, but they are still fast fashion.

“These, and Shein, are some of the only places I can afford that have my size in cute clothes. I don’t want to wear old lady clothes because they’re some of the only places that have my size available.”

Though she would really like to, McCausland-Taylor doesn’t feel like shopping sustainably is an option. Second hand shopping, a sustainable alternative to buying new, also presents an issue for some plus-sized people, as there is often a limited range of clothing available in larger sizes.

“It’s incredibly hard to find a sustainable and affordable range for plus size people, with most ranges not going further than a size 16 and if they do, the prices for the bigger sizes are astronomical.”

However, McCausland-Taylor still has some sustainable brand she liked to buy from when she can afford it.

“Friday Flamingo, Hine Collection, and Ruby & Rain are some sustainable NZ brands that stock my size, and they are absolutely beautiful. I own quite a few pieces from Hine but because of the pricing, I have to wait till they’re on sale most of the time.”

Lizzie Jollands studied fashion design for a little over a year. Jollands also considered herself alternative and wears majority alternative clothing. Jollands said, “Alternative clothing is very expensive, especially when you use sites that are local and who use ethically sourced materials and designs. Shein has a reputation for stealing ideas from small and independent artists that create amazing designs.”

Jollands went on to cite the TikTok famous ‘strawberry dress’ that retails at $490 USD from the designer Lirika Matoshi but a knock off can be bought on Shein for less than $30.

Jollands said garments from these sustainable brands last “pretty much a lifetime due to the techniques and material that they use. Shein leaves you with a garment that is made horribly and doesn’t even fit”. Even though Shein doesn’t use the most ethical business practices, it is sometimes one of the only options for alternative and plus size students.

Consent education cast aside for another year

Sammy Carter (she/her)

The Ministry of Education put consent education off for another year at least, but activists say it cannot wait. After many campaigns for compulsory consent and sexual harm education in Aotearoa schools, the Ministry of Education expects it to be “considered” in the 2024 curriculum refresh.

Genna Hawkins-Boulton, co-founder of Let’s Talk Consent, said, “I understand there is a lengthy and bureaucratic process to refresh the national curriculum. But I don’t believe consent education can wait.”

Run by three young women, Let’s Talk Consent is an organisation promoting consent culture among youth. Currently the New Zealand curriculum does not refer to consent education explicitly but does include relationships and sexuality education.

Hawkins-Boulton said there was a “detrimental” disconnect between youth and policy makers.

According to Help Auckland, 16‒24-year-olds were four times more likely to be sexually assaulted than any other age group.

Hawkins-Boulton said, “The voices of young people are being suppressed, despite their demographic dominating the statistics of sexual harm victims and their stories consistently making news headlines.”

“I would hope the Ministry will prioritise its focus on ensuring consent is a comprehensive and holistic component of health education.”

She said findings suggest there is a lack of focus on te ao Māori teaching methods around consent and hopes this will be considered in the refresh too.

While she believes consent education should be compulsory, Hawkins-Boulton said schools are self-governing entities and have the power to ensure consent education themselves.

“I’ve spoken to a couple of schools who made consent education compulsory in Health education because they couldn’t wait for the Ministry’s decision.”

Hawkins-Boulton met with MPs and party leaders from Labour, National, Green and Act last year to discuss compulsory consent education and wider implementation of consent culture outside of the health curriculum.

She said while the general consensus was positive, “there needs to be a greater push from our communities to ensure each party is held accountable when supporting consent education”.

“It was interesting to see what each party’s perspective was on making consent a compulsory component in the national curriculum.”

In March, the organisation started the #IStandForConsent campaign, advocating for compulsory consent education across all schools in Aotearoa.

“We’ve received support from a range of different age groups which was awesome to see, the value of teaching consent can be understood across generations.”

Ministry of Education acting general manager of the New Zealand Curriculum Julia Novak said the New Zealand curriculum content is being developed and released in phases. She said the health and physical education learning area was on track to be refreshed in 2024.

“Relationships and sexuality education is included in this learning area, and we expect consent and sexual harm education to be considered during this refresh,” Novak said.

However, she did not answer Massive’s question of when in 2024 the curriculum would be refreshed. Starting this year, Massey University provided first year students with a compulsory consent education night before the start of O-Week.

Many students felt the Don’t Guess the Yes event taught them more than they learnt in high school.

Massey representatives said the university will continue to hold consent education events before O-Week.

A letter to hairdressers: Stop telling me not to box dye my hair

Opinion

Sammy Carter (she/her)

You’ll be glad to know I’ve transformed from a natural brunette goddess, to a red-tinted babe. But my hairdresser is not on board.

I’d had the same brown hair for 20 years before my best friend and I went to The Warehouse and bought two boxes of $7.50 Revlon dye, shade 31, dark auburn.

The middle-aged woman on the box looked like Mrs Incredible, with her dark auburn hair over one eye and swooshed to the side.

We set up shop in my bestie’s living room with an old towel, a chair from the side of the road and Gilmore Girls playing.

I made sure to constantly question her intelligence by asking if she was getting all my roots.

After half an hour of my scalp stinging, I washed the dye out and was left with a cute red tint. It was just enough of a change to make life feel exciting, but not enough that I looked like Ronald McDonald.

Not a lot of people noticed I had dyed my hair, but you know who did? My hairdresser.

I don’t go to the hairdresser very much because it’s so expensive. I go when I need a pick-me-up.

I’m used to hairdressers complimenting my luscious, thick hair and asking if the colour is all natural. This time, I was not welcomed with compliments but with huffs and puffs about my “forever ruined hair”.

“Why would you do that to your hair? Do you know it’s the same dye used on our clothes,” the hairdresser said, gesturing to his black T-shirt.

I’m quite a blunt person so I frankly said, “I don’t care”. Because hair grows back. I told him that the colour was already fading, and it looked pretty similar to my natural hair.

He shook his head and gave me a good old lecture - just when I was trying to have a break from uni. He said if I ever try to dye my hair again it will look terrible as my ruined hair will take colour differently to my new roots. Don’t bore me with logistics. I just wanna have fun! He then went on to charge me $65 for a dry cut. Not even wash and blow out, just a dry trim.

According to Stats NZ, in 1951 a women’s haircut cost 3 shillings or roughly $8 today. Price sampling from 2018 shows women’s haircuts are on average $63, and that’s without a dye job.

As the cost of living increased by over 8% last year, it’s hard for students to find cheap ways to have fun. It’s no wonder students turn to vintage and thrift shopping to explore their style. Sorry not sorry to all the hairdressers out there, but I stand by my $7.50 box dye adventure.

Study finds student are 20% smarter than ChatGPT

I’m happy to announce students have gone up against a robot and come out on top.

A massive crowd-sourced study with more than 25,000 questions from 186 institutions’ accounting assessments has found that students outperform ChatGPT.

Across all assessments, students scored an average of 76.7%, while ChatGPT scored 47.4% based on fully correct answers.

However, after giving ChatGPT some credit for partially correct answers, it would have scraped through many courses with an average of 56.5% overall.

The study’s co-authors included University of Auckland accounting and finance academics Ruth Dimes and David Hay.

Ruth Dimes, director of the University of Auckland Business School’s Business Masters programme, entered recent exam questions into ChatGPT and recorded how it performed compared to the students’ grades.

“I was surprised that ChatGPT didn’t perform as well as I thought it might have,” she said.

The study also found that the artificial intelligence tool sometimes made up facts, made nonsensical errors such as adding two numbers in a subtraction problem, and often provided descriptive explanations for its answers, even if they were incorrect.

Dimes said she’s interested in seeing how newer versions of ChatGPT and other AI tools would perform if a similar study were undertaken at another point in time.

“ChatGPT has already changed how we teach and learn. Many teaching staff run our assessments through the tool so we’re aware of what it might come up with.”

David Hay, UoA Professor of Auditing, found the bot was able to perform slightly better in auditing courses compared to financial accounting courses, but still not as well as the students.

The study, led by Professor David Wood of Brigham Young University in Utah, included a total of 25,817 questions (25,181 gradable by ChatGPT) that appeared across 869 different class assessments.

It also included 2,268 questions from textbook test banks covering topics such as accounting information systems (AIS), auditing, financial accounting, managerial accounting, and tax.

The study revealed differences in ChatGPT’s performance based on the topic area of the assessment. Specifically, the chatbot performed better on accounting information system (AIS) and auditing assessments compared to tax, financial, and managerial assessments.

The study, The ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence Chatbot: How Well Does It Answer Accounting Assessment Questions?, was published by the American Accounting Association.

Who are chaplains and what do we do…??

Chaplains offer humanity and connection for students and staff. Often it’s just a coffee, something to eat and a chat. We know life can get pretty messed up and stressy; lonely even. So we offer a place where you can land with that, talk things through or just have a laugh.

Historically, you’ll usually find chaplaincy in difficult places, like in hospitals, the military, schools, university...places where people need some support and encouragement. While you don’t need to be having a hard time, we won’t mind if you are.

Chaplains are people of faith, spiritual people, but you don’t have to be ‘religious’ to spend some time with us. We think life makes way more sense when you have some faith, but that’s not all we talk or care about, most of us are Uni graduates and have a life. We’re people who care and like to connect with others.

On each campus we have regular ‘chapel’ time. That’s a time to gather, read scripture, pray and discuss things. We’re independent from any church, but as individuals, usually involved with them.

So please drop in, meet some other students, have a hot drink, chat about the weather…flatting…art…study… music… the meaning of life...

An easy way to look us up is by searching ‘chaplains at Massey’ or a similar word search; we’re on the three campuses.

-Albany: at the lower level of the Business School.

-Manawatu: at The Centre/Te Waiora on Colombo Rd.

-Wellington: usually at the Well-Being Space, between the Pyramid and Tussock.

The world we live in is diverse and each of us is spiritually, emotionally and physically unique. The chaplaincy is here to listen and come alongside and encourage students at this stage of life, as well as offering spiritual support.

‘Imago Dei’ Or ‘Image of God’. We are all created in the image of God, no matter what our faith, gender, race, income, sexual orientation or role on this earth is, all of us reflect an image or imprint of God.

Albany Facebook: Spiritual Wellbeing Auckland Palmerston North Facebook: Spiritual Wellbeing Manawatu Wellington Instagram: masseychaplaincywellington