Auckland Uni journal shows off undergrads' talents

  • 16/10/2016
The journal was originally published in 2014 and started out as an annual publication
The journal was originally published in 2014 and started out as an annual publication

More than 40 undergraduates from the University of Auckland have become published authors.

The latest editions of the Interesting Journal were launched earlier this week and are made up of essays from within the Faculty of Arts.

The journal was originally published in 2014 and started out as an annual publication, but has become biannual due to it’s success. It’s made up composed of essays submitted by undergraduates from within the Faculty of Arts at UOA.

The two latest editions were launched on Tuesday in the university’s Fale Pasifika, where student contributors, their families and university staff celebrated their distribution. They were published simultaneously this time around, due to the number of submissions. 

Chutchaya Siriwattakanon submitted a sociology essay on how the biker boy subculture in Thailand reflected a failure of the society to adapt to capitalism.

Ms Siriwattakanon, who only started learning how to write in English four years ago, said being published in the journal was a huge honour.

“People tend to think the arts degree is under-recognised and I think if your work is published it gives it more standing, more legitimacy.”

Second year student Ben Fulton used the theological definition of religion to argue rugby was New Zealand’s church. 

"My essay was quite out of the ordinary and it was something I wanted to share with other New Zealanders and not just have confined to the depths of my Google Drive.”

Executive editor Sean MacLean said the aim of the publication was to enhance students’ learning by creating a shared knowledge base from undergraduate research.

“You can study quite a broad array of subjects under the Faculty of Arts and it shows what your peers in the degree are studying.”

Mr Maclean added undergraduate research is often completely unique.

“We keep it limited solely to undergraduates as they are very rarely published and it gives them the recognition they probably otherwise wouldn’t get,” he said.

“Very little seems to comes from all the effort you put in along the way, so I think it’s good to have something outside the marking of essays to reward people for top quality work.”

The Interesting Journal editors are now taking submissions from Semester Two this year, for edition five which is to be published in First Semester 2017.

Newshub.