Uni and Mardi Gras

Written by Allie Cook from Ursinus College

I officially survived my first week of uni! Although all my classes are bigger than anything I have ever experience back at Ursinus I love it!

Week one definitely got off to an exciting start since I didn’t experience my first class due to a fire inside the building.

I have yet to experience my Indigenous Australia class but I have high hopes! I did have my Science, Technology and Society lecture. I am pretty stoked for this class and think it will be interesting, hopefully I’ll be able to tie some of the aspects into my environmental courses.

On Tuesday I had my photography class which is four hours long!! I really enjoyed all of the material but it was a little painful to sit there for four hours straight. With more time we will be taking photos instead of lecturing and then at the end we have formal presentations of two series of work so that should be pretty rad.

Wednesday I don’t have any classes. So far there are two major differences I have notice about going to uni here versus in the states; one being that the lectures are longer and less frequent so I have more days off and two there are not a lot of daily homework assignments but rather larger assessments. Instead of having three one-hour lectures Monday, Wednesday and Friday or two 75-minute lectures Tuesday and Thursday, you would have one two-hour lecture once a week and maybe a one-hour tutorial. This is what allows me to not have classes on Wednesday or Friday… which is super rad! Three day weekend every weekend means three days of exploring every weekend!

Second since you probably only have lecture once a week there aren’t daily reading assignments due the next class period. Instead you could have quizzes every few weeks or just two larger writing assignments during the whole semester and then a final exam at the end. Definitely a different way of learning. The two-hour lectures seem so long then what I am use to but all-in-all it isn’t that bad.

So … instead of going to class on Wednesday I got my nose pierce!!

I have wanted to get my nose pierced ever since I was 16 and now that I there are no sports holding me back it just felt right to do in Australia. It hurt like a b*%^& but so worth it!!

Thursday I have my one environmental class, Biogeography and Environmental Change, and maybe I’m biased cause I’m an environmental studies major but this is my favorite class out of all of them. Not only am I going to learn about specific environments in Australia specifically surrounding Wollongong but also just really cool environmental aspects in general. We are doing a whole module on fire and its role in the ecosystem and learning about island biogeography to name a few topics. So yeah I’m pretty stoked!

Friday again I had no classes so I did some exploring around Wollongong. Hit up some thrift shops. One thing is for sure the weather here is extremely temperamental one second it could be sunny and 80 without a cloud in the sky then the next it could be raining sideways. Life down under, I guess.

Saturday I went into Sydney because after two weeks of  living in Australia and the only time I have been in Sydney was when my plane landed so it was time to go exploring. Naturally I did all the touristy things.

Went to the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Saw the Opera House (it was a very overcast day)

And walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens

I’m planning on going back when it isn’t so overcast and take some more quality pictures (haha). Probably the most fun part about Saturday was getting to see the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade!

Sadly my phone died before I could any quality pictures but it was such a fun night. If you are ever in Sydney in March I highly suggest you go! Not only were there a lot of fun floats, music and dancing but I got to see about 100 men walk in heels better than I ever will. The atmosphere was amazing all night.

Overall definitely a good first week at uni and I can’t wait to see what next week will be like when I actually start learning in my classes and not just going over the syllabus.

Until next time…

Stay rad!

Allie