Pete graduated earlier this year, and says he has grown a lot since his first year as an uncertain university student.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” says Pete, when reflecting on the start of his tertiary education journey. “I’m a massive nerd and follow the news quite closely, and I found in my first year that the best way to iron out what I thought was to write it down.
“I was fascinated by world affairs and the ways in which people change the world for the better. I wanted to know how all these big systems worked at a granular level. Someone suggested that Law would be a good fit—or at the very least, it’d give me a good lens through which to look at the world. So off I went to Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington!”
Like many students, Pete’s first year of university was an intense one, in large part because of the diversity of topics he was studying in his degrees. He says first-year law papers “are this amazing mix of history, sociology, politics, and philosophy. I could dive into pretty much anything.
“I really appreciated the way my professors broke down systems of power, and gave me the skills to do so too, so that their component parts could be examined. This helped me critique those systems without being intimidated by their complexity.”
At the same time Pete didn’t come to Te Kauhanganui Tātai Ture—Faculty of Law with the sole goal of becoming a lawyer: “I also spent a lot of time looking outside the University for fulfilment.”
This search for extracurricular fulfilment led Pete into his current profession, as an award-winning journalist writing on current affairs, politics, and law. He won Feature Writer of the Year (Longform), Junior Feature Writer of the Year, and Best Feature Writing (Crime & Justice) at the 2022 Voyager Media Awards.
“I started writing these long essays: sometimes for university, sometimes just for myself,” he explains. “I found it useful for clarifying my thoughts on difficult issues. Partway through the year, I wrote one about the comparative performance of MMP in Germany and New Zealand. Late one night, before leaving my university hall for a party, I spotted this essay still on my laptop, alongside an open internet browser loaded to Newsroom.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking: I typed out an email to Tim Murphy, Newsroom’s editor, with the essay attached and fired it off to see if they’d be interested in publishing it. When I woke up the next morning, Tim had said yes!” With that, Pete McKenzie the ‘apprehensive first-year law student’ became Pete McKenzie, the law student and published journalist.’
The Faculty of Law campus is based in the middle of Aotearoa’s parliamentary precinct, and this placement provides many opportunities for students to work in government or law. Pete was presented with another great opportunity to study the inner workings of government and law when he was offered a job working as a Messenger in Parliament’s debating chamber.
“I wasn’t essential to the functioning of government,” he jokes. “I would sit around the debating chamber waiting to deliver messages or get water for politicians. But it paid well and, more importantly, required that I spend hours watching parliamentary speeches and talking with MPs.
Unfortunately, Pete’s role also exposed to the unpleasant parts of that reality: “the toxicity, bullying and harassment that certain MPs would later become infamous for, that infuriated me.” But at the same time, parts of it were inspiring. “I was struck by the optimism and idealism of that place and the idea that a few individuals, from a few places across the country, could come together and fix things.”
He is grateful for his time at the Faculty of Law for the generosity with which he was taught. “I had many professors who went out of their way to help me grow as a thinker—they were generous with their time and left deep intellectual impressions.”
He is also grateful for the Humanities academics he encountered, particularly Political Science lecturers Dr Claire Timperley and Associate Professor Emily Bausoleil, who “transformed” the way he thought about politics.
Pete is now in New York, setting up and getting ready for his next steps.
“I will begin studying a Master of Arts in Journalism (MA) at Columbia University in New York, which will be quite a new experience,” says Pete.
“I’ve worked as a journalist for five years and have had a decent amount of success, but I’ve never worked in a newsroom or had formal training. It’ll be amazing to spend nine months focused entirely on becoming a better writer, taught by some of the greatest journalists in the world.”
As well as going to journalism school, he can take a few courses from anywhere in the University as part of the MA programme. “I’m incredibly excited about doing things entirely out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to grow.”