First Week of Classes at UQ

 This was my first week of classes at the University of Queensland. After almost 2 weeks of getting settled in Brisbane, I was really ready to begin classes. It's interesting because in addition to learning about the content of my classes, I'm also learning about what it is like to be a uni student here in Australia.

The University of Queensland is part of something called the 'Sandstone Universities', they are the Australian Ivies and the best and oldest schools in the country. And as you can see (above), they are called that for a reason. The majority of the buildings on campus are a beautiful sanded sandstone. They have a main quadrangle called Great Court and it is a huge green area surrounded by Sandstone buildings, the campus is huge but gorgeous. Sandstone buildings, interspersed with tropical fauna.

There are a couple of really interesting differences about going to university here. Firstly, they do not call undergraduate education college, it's called university or 'uni' for short. Actually, here a college is a dorm, so if you say college instead of uni it gets confusing. Another difference is that a typical undergraduate degree takes 3 years here instead of 4, unless you are doing a double degree, then it can take 4 or 5. And if you go to grad school right after uni you can get your masters in a total of 5 years. They also don't use 'freshman', 'sophomore', 'junior', and 'senior' here. Instead it's first-year, second-year, and third-year. Though the first-years are called 'freshers'. So I'm a third year here.

However, the biggest difference for me has been how classes and scheduling work. Classes are not at the same time every day, nor at the same place. And some of them are taught by multiple professors. So you have to be extremely on top of your schedule. For example, my Australia's Marine Environment class is at 10a on Monday, 2p on Wednesday, and 9a on Thursday. And it is in 3 different buildings… It's really confusing and is going to take me awhile to figure it out. Also, here a typical course load is 3 or 4 classes. Wash U makes us take 5, which is the maximum possible here. So when I tell people I'm in 5 they look at me in shock. I'm a little ticked because I'm in class about 23 hours a week which is about 4 hours more than anyone else. But, it's basically the same amount of time I'm in class at Wash U. Also, I'm interested in all my classes, so it gives me the opportunity to take more interesting things!

As for class content. I'm in 2 classes that are specifically about Australia. Australia's Marine Environment Mars2005, and Australia's Terrestrial Environment Biol2001. I'm also in 2 upper level classes Biological Adaptations to Climate Change Biol3236 and Marine Geology and Paleoceanography Erth3110. My last course is Marine Science Mars2014. I've had them all, and so far I like most of them. Especially Biol2001 and Erth3110, both have awesome lecturers who make the material interesting and engaging. Something that I've found really ironic is that I'm basically learning the exact same thing in every class this week. Oceanography. I've reviewed parts of oceanography is every class (though more plate tectonics than oceanography in biol2001). Starting here I thought that I had a very poor background in oceanography. I only remembered learning specifically about the topic my freshman year in our general earth science class. But, I realized that I've actually done a lot of physical and chemical oceanography in my paleoenvironmental course, biogeochemistry course, and organic geochemistry course. So I have literally done nothing but review my last three years of ocean and earth science. And I realized I know a lot! Now, since this is the first week and just review, I'm certain that as the courses get off the ground I'll be learning a lot go new material, but it was reassuring to know that I'm prepared for the course that I'm enrolled in.

My favorite thing that I've learned about so far was the history of zoology in Australia and what the international reputation about Australian wildlife is. I learned about this in my Australia's Terrestrial Environment lecture. Our professor had us shout out what we think of when we think go Australian fauna. Some of the words that went up were Marsupials, Danger! (with an exclamation point), monotremes, endemics, and flightless birds. We then preceded to learn about the reactions of european zoologists to the fauna they found here, and how they saw it as bizarre. Also we learned about the origin of the term 'Down Under', apparently it is not only because Australia is in the southern hemisphere, but also because the europeans thought that this was literally a land of opposites. Crazily enough swans are actually the reason for this. Apparently, the first europeans to land here touched down near Perth and observed many black swans, and since there are only white swans in Europe assumed everything was an opposite. This was reinforced by the unique fauna here like kangaroos, and the platypus (which for years the scientists back in Europe thought was made up because it was too strange to their current paradigm!).

Anyway, those were just some of the interesting things that I learned in one class, on one day. I'm so excited to see what the rest of the semester has in store for me!