Back to School

Alright, it’s time for the post that describes the real reason that I am able to be here in Sydney and that is school. After all, I am “studying” abroad and I will apologize now that this one may not be as exciting as my other posts, but I know at least one person will be very interested in the outlook of the classes I’m taking. Enjoy Dad!

Well I only have class four days of the week, Tuesday through Friday. My class on Tuesday is Managing People. This is a required human resources class that I need to take to fulfill a requirement back home. The class looks like it is going to be very basic and fairly easy to do well in, but I can also sense that it is going to be very difficult to stay focused for 2 hours of lecturing. It was already a struggle on the first day and we were only there for an hour. Hopefully, somehow, the material gets interesting, but so far we just talked about organizations; all the different types that exist and what their purpose is. Pretty basic stuff, but it was the first day and that’s more than we did in any of my other classes. In addition to the lecture on Tuesday for Managing People I also have a one-hour tutorial, as well as a one-hour tutorial on Thursday. Since this was the first week, though, we didn’t have any of those tutorials.

Wednesday is a very easy day, since I only have a one-hour lecture for Australian Wildlife Biology. This class should be pretty interesting as we get to talking about the different types of animals and plants that are native to Australia and why they are here. So far, we just talked about how the continents have shifted over many millions of years to where they are now and also how they are still moving today, although only at a rate of about 2 centimeters per year. Evidence shows that millions of years ago a lot of the continents were together as one landmass which proves how the same animals are found in different parts of the world, they traveled across land. Anyway, that class should be pretty cool and in addition to the lecture on Wednesday, there is a two-hour lab on Thursday evening. I am also required to go on a weekend excursion to Smith’s Lake to observe some of the flora and fauna that we will be talking about in class.

Also on Thursday I have what projects to be a very interesting and fun class, The Marine Environment. Now, this is a class that has the potential to be the one where I learn the most, even though it will require the least amount of study, I just think I will find the material to be very fascinating and therefore it will be easy to stay focused. There are three compulsory field trips that I must attend. How awesome is that? I have to go to places like Botany Bay and the Sydney Aquarium. Don’t think that will be too difficult of an assignment. And the best part of it all is that these field trips account for 40% of the total grade! Booyah!

As for Friday, well I’m not going to get my hopes up. It’s an Economics course on the history of Australian Economic Development, another class that I’m required to take for my Management major. It could be worse I suppose, but it doesn’t appear that it will be too terribly interesting or engaging of a class. I don’t see if being extremely difficult though either, so that’s a plus. I have that class for three hours on Friday morning.

Overall, the classes here are held in a pretty different manner than in the US. Most of the classes require you to complete just a couple assignments throughout the semester, usually an essay or two, and then take the final exam. Now, this does not mean that I can just slack off and try to learn it all in the last month or anything and hope to just do well on the exam. The exams here are not multiple choice like most in the US. Here, the exams are all in essay and short answer format, so I will actually need to learn the material very well and not be able to guess if I don’t know the answer. I’m not saying that I never studied hard or that you don’t need to know your stuff for classes in the US, it’s just that having to write essays is a little bit more intimidating than if I could take a multiple choice exam. I think by having exams like this I will learn a lot more anyway, so it might be for the better.

One week down, 13 more to go!