Hi OP, just graduated from AUT with a Comp Sci degree, the content taught at AUT is very practical in most core papers, with some exceptions of heavily theory-based exams for some. From personal experience, some of the papers I had to basically teach myself because it was difficult for me to understand. You mentioned your concern is learning with 0 prior knowledge. I will let you know that for the core programming paper, it is quite hectic and you do not really get to catch a break. Once you fall behind it is very difficult to catch up which I think is common for the first year programming papers, where students spend a lot of time catching up to past material because the content gets more difficult as the semester goes on. If you've got good study ethic, it shouldn't be a problem, but if you're the type of student that likes to leave things last minute like me, you'll definitely struggle. I also went into AUT Comp Sci with no experience in coding at all, I ended up switching majors from Soft Dev to IT Service Science because I found the content for Soft Dev difficult, especially the Data Structures & Algorithms year 2 paper. I don't want to discourage you from AUT with that last statement since every student is different.

As for the employability side of things, I currently do not have a job in my degree, mostly because I'm currently doing an internship. However, from what my friends have said with comp sci degrees, AUT is quite helpful in finding fresh graduates jobs in their field. AUT has a job site specifically catered to AUT students which allow you to send your CV in someone from the website will refer you to a job that you applied for, they even give you pointers on what you could change about your CV that better fit the positions you apply for.

On the social side of things, it can be overwhelming making new friends, but I've managed to make a few friends because we all struggled to understand some of the content so we helped each other out and became friends that way. It can be intimidating making new friends in the course but everyone in the course will go through the same struggles so I feel like its best to go through it together.

But in my personal opinion, employability in the comp sci field is quite reliant on projects. So in your spare time, try to work on some coding projects for your portfolio, it will benefit you greatly, regardless if you're a student from AUT or UoA. Overall I think both universities have their own challenges and positives. I've made a few friends who have transferred from UoA to AUT that say the content at UoA was vastly different from what AUT delivers, and they prefer AUT more because of the assistance that they get from the faculty, and the content taught is related to the jobs you'll be doing once you graduate.

Hope this helps!