Why Chelsea chose Ōtautahi Christchurch

Baltimore, Maryland to Christchurch, NZ

After starting her career in the US, Chelsea was burnt out with long days and sought greener pastures finding the life/work balance of Christchurch too good to be true.

Why Christchurch

I have a degree in Molecular Genetics & Biomedical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Immunology & Microbiology, and for 5 years I worked in personalised cancer diagnostics. I was working 12, 15 hour days every day. I woke up one morning and I was 30, and I thought to myself “There has to be more to life than this.”

So I sold all my stuff and I decided I would travel. Naturally I picked New Zealand, and the south purely on its reputation as a beautiful place for hiking and kayaking and surfing and all of these things. I had only intended to stay for a year and now it's been six.

What were your first impressions of Christchurch before you came down, and has that changed?

I'm going to confess, I didn't even know that there were two islands in New Zealand. I had never been here. I had just known that Christchurch was one of the bigger cities. When I got here, I thought it might be more agricultural, a lot smaller, much less metropolitan.

I knew in the earthquake had destroyed a lot of the city. Part of me didn't anticipate how much of it had been rebuilt. But not only that, it also wasn't rebuilt in the way it used to be. The city has done an incredible job of letting nature in, rebuilding the city very intentionally.

There's so much incredible modern infrastructure I never would have expected - brand new cycleways and bus stations, ways for people to get connected, and new art, attractions, parks and places to enjoy. They've done a good job of diversifying the things they invested in to make living in Christchurch a really beautiful, holistic experience for everyone.

Do you think there are good job opportunities for people to grow their careers?

New Zealand has a sort of cultural value around ingenuity and doing things their own way. The culture here in Christchurch takes it up a notch, with incubators and agencies sharing resources, skills and knowledge because at the end of the day, it is a really small country and we can learn from each other to reach global markets.

The startups here make a real effort to build community, not just in their area of expertise, but with the wider tech industry allowing people like me who have emigrated to learn from their experiences. They also make a great effort to share it with young people, and to help bring them up.

Christchurch really punches above its weight in a lot of areas. It is essentially the landing pad for global Antarctic scientific research and we have numerous start-ups for apps and tech innovation like First Table, Seequent, Dawn Aerospace, and obviously our game studio CerebralFix, These companies are not only reaching the global marketplace but they are incredibly successful and recognized worldwide.

What makes life so good here in Christchurch?

I was surprised by how green it is. In Baltimore, it can feel like you have to drive 40 minutes to see a tree, but here parks full of beautiful, big, mature trees are everywhere. Everything is so beautifully maintained. It's so clean and it's so safe. In Baltimore, I would not leave my house after 7 p.m. because as a young woman, it can be dangerous to move around in that city on your own. But in Christchurch, it's well lit, safe, and there are incredible transportation options.

If you took all of the amenities that Christchurch has - from brand new infrastructure, to the skiing in the mountains, and the beautiful beaches for surfing and windsurfing - and put it in the United States, it would be most crowded, expensive place to live.

When people ask me why I moved to Christchurch, I like to say ‘I don't know why anyone lives anywhere else.’