By Rebecca Grandahl
Tan skin and blonde highlights give this Boston University student a typical “island girl” look, but her eyes resemble the native New Zealand Maori tribe, whose blood runs through her veins. Her name is Maika Akroyd, and she’s come from the other side of the globe to live her own dream in Boston, Massachusetts.
You might not be able to immediately place the thick accent when you first meet her, but it’s that of a native New Zealander. Maika’s pride for her culture and home country are part of what makes her shine in such a huge American city. Although her hometown is drastically different from her current home in Boston, she respects both just the same.
“Gisborne is like a little slice of heaven,” Maika said of her hometown, Gisborne. “It’s so uncomplicated.”
Gisborne is located on the Eastern Coast of New Zealand, which means it’s the first city in the entire world to see the new day. While it is technically a city, Maika says, it’s only about 40,000 people, which is just slightly larger than BU’s undergraduate population.
The differences between Gisborne and Boston are obviously huge, being that they are in entirely different global hemispheres and a two-day-plane-trip apart. Maika says that the city life in Boston strikes her as “very driven,” while in Gisborne, people are much more laid-back and kind.
“Different things matter,” she said of the two cities. “At home, we value the quality of life over work.”
Maika, who is half-Native Maori New Zealander and half-Swiss, grew up playing field hockey on a high school team and eventually participated in national tournaments. When the time came for her to graduate, her high school coach recommended her to the coaches at BU, who offered her a full scholarship to play in Boston on the Division 1 team.
“I wanted to get out of the smaller city,” Maika recalls, adding that the opportunity to play field hockey and get a degree on a full scholarship was too great to pass up. “It took courage to leave Gizzy, but I really underestimated how hard it would be here,” she says.
Maika came to Boston for the first time in 2015. On August 7th, she flew from her homeland to Boston to begin field hockey preseason, which she initially saw as a casual time to just play hockey like any other day.
“When I got [to Boston], we were doing so many sprints and practicing twice a day. My body just hurt so bad. It was screaming when I went up the stairs,” Maika says.
Once school began for her freshman year, Maika studied in the College of General Studies, which she says was good for her because she got to learn about American History. She was eager and naive, but excited to have just begun a huge new chapter in life.
Maika laughs remembering herself as a freshman. “I was actually so oblivious, I booked my flight home for Christmas three days after exams ended, so I was the only one left on campus for almost a week! I just sat and watched Netflix waiting to go home,” she says, chuckling.
Sophomore year, however, hit the New Zealander extremely hard. An unexpected challenge hit her out of nowhere at the beginning of her fall semester. Still today, she struggles greatly to talk about it but does her best to push through as she says she wants to help others when it comes to coping with difficult personal issues. While Maika does not want to identify the exact issue, she did briefly talk about what it was like dealing with a scarring time so far from home. Being almost 10,000 miles away from home, Maika began isolating herself and was unsure of how to cope.
“I actually rang home less often,” she says of the time, “because I knew that if I called, I’d cry and become even more homesick.”
Maika spends nine months of the year in Boston, going home only twice for the winter and summer breaks. During her sophomore year, she debated not coming back to Boston at all.
“It was hell,” she says. Her demeanor became cold while reflecting on that time. “It just sucked.”
After two years of school finished and with two years still left, many people would have given up. Maika, however, credits her stubbornness with bringing her back to Boston to finish school.
“When I was home, it felt good to say I was gonna drop out. But I just didn’t feel like it should’ve been an option,” Maika says, describing her choice to return to school.
Thankfully, her life began to rise after dipping so low. “Junior year I found my place on the [field hockey] team,” she says, “and now I’m just more aware in general of who I am and of others around me.”
Maika says that if she were to have stayed in New Zealand and never come to Boston, she feels she would have been more small-minded than what she is now. “It’s like I know I’m not living in a bubble anymore,” she says.
Representing the number 22 jersey on the field hockey team, you can find her playing on the field or hanging with friends in West Campus. The COM broadcast journalism major graduates in 2019 and is looking forward to getting a news job back home in New Zealand!
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