Classes: Part One

This is a series of posts I’ve been meaning to make since orientation exactly 12 weeks ago now. And being as this past week signaled the end of classes right now might be an apt time to write about classes overseas at the University of Melbourne. This first post is about taking classes overseas, and a second will be about the actual classes and professors. And this post basically follows on from this post
That Monday I took my first lectures in my classes, Chemistry, Culture Media Life, War State and Society, and Australian Indigenous Studies as well as my first tutorial for Chemistry. By Wednesday I had dropped chemistry (which I realized was WAY over my head) in favor of Globalization. With that change the rest of the week followed fairly smoothly as I began to understand and appreciate the Aussie way of classes. That was:
Each of my classes has three teaching hours a week. 2 of those are lectures. Lectures are in the large lecture halls around campus—most buildings have one, some have two, one even had 4 smaller ones. Here a single lecturer or a host of guest lectures give you the bulk of the information you will need for the class. Terms, theories, definitions and facts are shoved into you brain as fast as the lecture can in their 50 minute time period. The remaining hour is a tutorial. Here the big lecture hall is split into smaller groups (10-20 people each) to hold meetings throughout the week for sessions with tutorial teachers. In many cases tutorials take the form of discussions about the weeks topics presented in the lectures. It’s here that the information jostling around in your head is solidified with examples and clarification into something meaningful. After particularly confusing weeks it’s easy to see the benefit that tutorials have on classes. In some cases, like my Chemistry class which I promptly dropped, there are Practicals. Practicals are generally once a week in addition to lectures and tutorials and usually last for 3 to 4 hours for realistic application of the week’s material. Then finally for all classes there is reading. Interdisciplinary subjects and broad ranging subjects generally utilize a reader, while more concise subject will use the traditional textbook (chemistry, par example). The readers are separated by weekly divides and contain one to two readings that supplement the week’s lectures. Readers are good sources for material, information and quotes for essays that have to be written throughout the year, as well as for the reason they were designed—to be read.
The class day is split up into one hour periods, with one running into the back of the next. This means that lecturers and teachers generally run from 5 mins in to 5 mins before so students can get between classes. Although in some cases (my Culture Media Life lecture) the lecturer often ran to the very end or even over the time period.

AusTour 18: Adelaide Day Two

After a less exciting and informational ride back to Adelaide I stored my luggage in the terminal (having to return later that night) for day two in Adelaide. The first stop I made, and one I had seen the day before was the Rundle Street mall. Here I counted no less that 3 clowns, at least 7 instrument performers (including a singer, harmonica-ist, two boys emphatically playing ‘pep-band’ songs on trumpets, and several guitarists), 1 free tattoo lady [i was tempted...], 2 people on huge balls, and a couple of other people I cant remember right now. Rundle Street mall is a pedestrian only section of Rundle Street with more shops than your dog has fleas. Following that I walked up to the Adelaide oval for an actual tour. The old man who led it, dressed to the nines (or perhaps the eights) in a uniform you would probably expect from the turn of the century (20th that is) was fairly informative about the history of the oval and its specific significance in cricket history (host of the ashes in 1884 where England won!) as well as some of the major players after whom the stands had been named. We got to go out onto the oval grass (pretty cool) but the most impressive part was going inside the traditionally kept and still operable scoreboard. It’s a fairly mammoth task of operating this monster, and required at least 4 men on a good day.Following the oval tour I went down to the Adelaide art museum. Mostly this was to see some of their Aboriginal Art (Again for my essay), but I also spent some time in their more classical art of which they have a lot. For free entry it was good just walk quickly through the fairly sizable rooms for a quick glance at the art. As five o’clock neared again and everything in Adelaide began to shut down I headed down through Adelaide Uni to the banks of the Torrens. I sat for a while on the quite banks of the river, watching the ducks, rowers and sun sinking in the sky.
As the day drew to a close I grabbed dinner before heading back to the bus terminal for my bus back to Melbourne to end the trip. It was an overnight bus getting into Melbourne at 6:30 in the morning. It was good to be back in Melbourne, a city that is now incredibly familiar to me, but it was also nice to be away from it. Somehow I managed to get from Southern Cross station to my apartment without a single tram passing in my direction, a 30 minute walk.

2 Things, Possibly 3

Just wanted to 1) say I’m back from another trip. This one I didn’t actually advertise I was going on but it was up the Great Ocean Road which is west of Melbourne. I went with the Melbourne Uni Outdoors trip, and it was really great. Really nice weather, awesome people and lots of spectacular sights. 3) I’ll blog about it after I’ve finished with Aus Tour which I’m about 5 days into—the next one is Port Macquarie.
Finally 2) this is the first night in Melbourne where I’ve actually been able to keep my door to the balcony open. It’s incredibly nice out still with temperatures still hovering in around 23 degrees (73). There’s a light breeze but most importantly it’s a warm breeze. It was super ‘fine’ today (probably one of the nicest Melb days I’ve had here) and I could definitely get used to this warm evenings thing I’ve been missing for the past few months.
Im going to close it now and go to bed though because I’m so tired from this weekend.

O-Week

O-Week arrived in a hurry, just a couple of days after arriving in Melbourne. (I’m still not exactly sure if it’s a ‘O’ like orientation week or a 0 like zero week—it’s been referred to as both). Most of the AustraLearn group met in the lobby to make our way onto the University of Melbourne campus for what would be the first time (for some of us). The campus is particularly hard to describe, because although it has some amazingly sculpted old-English-feel buildings (Old Arts), it also has some that aren’t so appealing to the eye (Redmond Barry). The much newer buildings are different again, are taking on a very modern look (Medical and Alan Gilbert). Without any kind of map to weave our way between the insane number of oddly-shaped and large buildings it was surprisingly lucky that we made it to our first orientation site. Though, even with the map we managed to walk the complete opposite direction to the second orientation site. Buildings are often named after what their faculty is, the zoology building is zoology, chemistry is chemistry, and old physics is physics. The universities buildings are nestled in between each other, leaving small alleys between them, which are often filled with bikes, people and the occasional car trying to squeeze through. For what space there is between buildings there are attempts at sitting areas and lawns. The south lawn in front of the Old Arts Building is the biggest, but there are also areas next to the student union and in front of the Asia Centre (coffee shops appear everywhere, but that’s typical for Melbourne). Construction runs rampart through the university, with one building readying for construction on campus, one almost finished slightly off campus and numerous places on campus where there is minor work being done (including the entirety of the chemistry building). I managed to register for Australia Indigenous Studies, Chemistry 1, Culture Media Life, and War State and Society. All of which would commence the following Monday.