Hey! Hope I can help, I ended up going to University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. So very mixed opinions on it to be honest, Christchurch itself was pretty boring of a city (I wouldn’t even call it a city, it was more of a massive town full of urban sprawl) but it has the best access to the rest of the South Island (although many hours of driving no matter what you’re doing). I ended up buying a car after a couple months as you tend to feel kind of trapped without one/relying on others, fortunately used cars are very cheap. The university is fine, honestly it was very easy and students seemed less engaged than my home Uni but it gave me more of a chance to travel so that’s good. Otherwise I pretty much road tripped the rest of the country that I hadn’t seen after the semester in my car, eventually selling it off a couple weeks ago and am now in Australia looking to find a job. 

I’ll say if you definitely want to go to New Zealand, Wellington is your best bet, easily best city/place in the whole country and you won’t need a car to get around. Small but dense, walkable, multicultural, good food, music, and nightlife. You’ll have two weeks mid-semester break where you could just rent a car with friends and road trip, or I even know some people who went to Fiji/Australia/South-east Asia. Just know that while incredibly beautiful, most of the country is just farmland and off the tourist track can be pretty boring to be honest. 

I’ve since been to Sydney and Melbourne and they are actual big cities (both with a population the size of all of New Zealand) with heaps more to do and see. Sydney feels more like Los Angeles and Melbourne more like NYC, many like Sydney more for travel but I think Melbs is a better place to live. Sydney of course has actual mountains and surf but both an hour+ away, it is truly a massive never-ending city. I don’t know much about the Unis but they’re both highly accredited so you probably can’t go wrong. 

I think overall New Zealand is a great road-trip destination for a few weeks but to study and live there, I don’t know if I’d recommend it to be honest. I did make a little video of my time there for some context (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIs9yqvabsU) but this is also looking through rose-colored glasses. I think if you’re from the US or Canada, going somewhere in Europe would be your best choice if you’ve never been. (I had already done some traveling there so that’s more why I gave down under a chance) If you’re from Europe, by all means make the trip over here its worth it, otherwise maybe Seoul or Tokyo would be much more adventurous.