Ms Kimura (21) said, apart from clipping back her fringe, she had done little to prepare for her new student ID but ‘‘it was important to look good''.
Joining the back of the line, which had snaked from the ground floor to half way along the first floor, at 10.50am, Ms Kimura said she hoped it would move fast.
‘‘I don't want to be all day waiting,'' she said. The ID Card Office is located in the Information Services Building and some 2500 students were issued with IDs yesterday.
By 11.05am, Ms Kimura had followed the line in a loop from the first floor to the ground floor, and was excited about getting her hands on the brown ID card.
Not only used to identify students, the card is for everything from printing credits at the libraries, to getting discounts from shops.
An international student, Ms Kimura said she knew the benefit of the card, having taken Foundation Studies last year to prepare her for health sciences and her dream of becoming a doctor.
‘‘I came here because it is very famous for medicine and I want to be a doctor in New Zealand.'' With plenty of studying to do, Ms Kimura said she appreciated how the card gave her afterhour access to university buildings and computer resource rooms.
By 11.10am, Ms Kimura was instructed to go to the ID office and said goodbye to her friend as he headed to a different room.
‘‘It is a shame I couldn't go with my friend, because we could have talked,'' she said.
Greeted by enrolment staff member James Chilton (22), who was working the camera, Ms Kimura handed over a slip of paper with her ID number, stood on the well-worn line of masking tape and smiled for the camera.
Mr Chilton said, unlike for passport photos, smiling was encouraged but photos of people pulling faces were not. ‘‘We just encourage people to smile for the camera.''
Ms Kimura's image was printed on the card and it was encoded with relevant information, such as passwords, to make her university life easier. At 11.15am Ms Kimura signed the card, and approved her picture. ‘‘I like it,'' she said.