First Week of Classes

Well, I’m happy to say that I have successfully completed my first week of school in the land down under.  Even though this week pretty much served as an introduction to all my classes, I still learned a lot about what to expect of my four classes over the next several weeks.  My first class is Integrated Marine Systems, which seems like it should be a lot of fun.  My teacher is from Austria and he seems like a very cool, chill, surfer dude type guy (even though I’ve heard that he is a really tough grader).  He is very passionate about marine life and even uses the top of a fishing pole as his pointer during lectures.  In this class we get to take a two day trip to Fraser Island to do actual research and data collecting, which I cannot wait for!  My second class is Introducing Human Geographies, which also seems like a very interesting course.  My teacher is from England and has a very cool British accent.  Even though she is a geographer, she didn’t know where Maryland was until I told her that it is near Washington D.C.  My third class is Biodiversity and Ecology.  This class almost seems like it should be a review for me since I’ve already taken so many biology and environmental classes, but a review is perfectly fine with me.  My teacher is from Australia and is a terrestrial ecologist with a passion about the environment.  During our first lecture we started talking about mass extinctions that have happened and dinosaurs came up in the topic.  In one of his slides it said that ET impact could have been a cause of dinosaur extinction.  When I read this I thought to myself, “What crazy Aussies!  They believe in aliens and are blaming aliens on mass extinctions!  What are they teaching us here?!”  But then my teacher went on to explain how “ET impact” meant meteor showers and other disasters from space, which definitely made a lot more sense.  My fourth and final class is Introduction to Sociology.  My teacher is a sociologist from Australia and has the most amazing Australian accent, it’s the best one I’ve heard so far since being here.  His voice could be in movies or something!  This class seems like it will be very interesting because it’s all about Australian society which is a whole new topic for me.

Grading, or marking as Australians call it, is way different than in the United States.  There are no letter grades, but instead there is a different system:  High Distinction is 85 – 100%, Distinction is 75 – 84%, Credit is 65 – 74%, Pass is 50 – 64%, and Fail is 0 – 49%.  So pretty much, if you get anything over 50% you have passed the course.  Now, they are way harder graders over here so these percentages don’t exactly equal out to our percentages we get in the U.S.  So the U.S. equivalence to this grading system would be an A+ for High Distinction, A for Distinction, B for Credit, C for Pass, and D or F for Fail depending on the actual percentage.

Your final grade in a class depends on only three things.  In almost every class you only have three assessments for the entire semester, and two of these assessments are essays written outside of class.  The first essay is called the minor essay and is usually worth 20% of your final grade.  The second essay is the major essay and is worth usually 40% of your final grade.  Now when I say essay, I mean full blown research assignment with a minimum of 6 – 10 (depending if it’s the minor or major essay) outside sources.  And then the last 40% of your final grade comes from the final exam.  So there are no midterms or other exams or quizzes, just a lot of writing and researching all semester long.

Even though this semester sounds like a lot of work and a lot of transitioning into Australian education mode, it also sounds like a fun and exciting learning experience for me.  I absolutely love this place and this campus!  The campus is so beautiful and it is all so open to the outdoors.  Instead of walking into a building and then walking down a long boring hallway to your classroom door, on this campus all the classroom doors are all outside.  The “hallways” are all covered in case it rains, but pretty much the whole campus is outdoors.  I just love how you aren’t really ever inside an actual building.  All the classroom doors lead right to outside, it’s beautiful!

So, what have I learned so far?  I’ve learned that people still doodle all over their notes no matter what country you are from or what language you speak.  People still fall asleep during long boring lectures.  Slackers still pack up and leave class early.  8 AM classes are still dreaded over here.  It’s okay not to wear shoes to class or anywhere in public actually.  Everyone just wants to be at the beach instead of class.  Two hour lectures still drag on forever even if the professor has a cool accent.  Everyone lives for the weekends.  And I’ve learned that I should always bring my camera to class because I think I saw a bandicoot on my walk home this evening.  Wild, beautiful Australia!