Hello from the Biological Sciences Library! I'm writing to you from my new home for the next 3 (you read that right) weeks. It's finals time here are UQ, and that means long days spent in the library trying to prepare for exams. This semester I have 5 exams (That's the most I've had since freshman year and more than most people have at UQ… the woes of having to take 5 courses). Let me tell you a little about how exams work here at UQ.
First major difference is what they call Reading Week here. It's called SWOTVAC, which stands for study vacation. Basically you get a week off of classes (a full week, not just 5 days like at wash u) to study and then 2 FULL WEEKS of exams. Sooooo an extremely large time of being in exam mode. And my 5 exams… my first was on the first day of finals period, and my last is on the second to last… so I truly am in this for the long haul.
Second major difference is the way exams are constructed here. At Wash U they are held in the same lecture halls we have class in and are usually administered by our profs or TAs. Here exams are like standardized tests. You get an answer booklet and scantron, have to fill out you name and info, get an assigned seat. Desks are organized in rows and proctors patrol them. Basically, my first final felt like I was taking the OWLS in Harry Potter. Some of my friends were not phased by this since, apparently it's a big school method of finals, but Wash U doesn't test like that, so it surprised me at first. Also all finals are worth 50% of your grade, and you must pass them to pass the course.
So besides the general way that the exam period and exams themselves, study and going through all of the material I've learned this semester has highlighted some of the major course differences that I really didn't realize until I had completed classes here. I wrote a post after my first week here. One of the things I mentioned is that I was learning a lot of the same material in my classes, little did I know… that was true to a grossly ridiculous extent. Especially in my Marine Science class, where only a single unit (fisheries) was original content for me, everything else was either covered in my other courses here (specifically paleoceanography and Australia's Marine Environment) or I had learned it back at Wash U. This was also true with my Bio Adaptations class. And not only was the content similar, it was EXACTLY THE SAME in a lot of the cases. So another way that classes were conducted is that different professors taught different units in the same course. This led to use having anywhere between 5-10 different profs for any one class. This means I got overlap in 2 ways: between units and between courses. Since profs in the same course didn't always coordinate their material they ended up reviewing the same topics many many times (cough*cane toads*cough). Also sometimes the same professor would give the exact same lectures for different courses…. to the extent that they would recognize me and others taking both classes (bio adapt and terrestrial, and marine science and marine environment) and say "Hey I recognize you guys! this is the exact same lecture you got yesterday/last week, you can leave if you want" This happened multiple times throughout the semester.
Now this kind of thing is both good and bad, it's been great studying for finals because I've been simultaneously preparing for multiple tests since there is so much overlap in the material. It's also really disappointing because, I actually didn't end up learning as much original material as I expected to this semester :(
Now I'm going to briefly reflect on some of the worst things about UQ (ranting sorry) and some of the best things (I did learn some extremely valuable stuff here!). I'll save the best for last so here are just a few of my biggest disappointments with UQ.
My marine science class was the absolute worst class I have taken in all of my time as a college student. Mostly, this was because it was the most disorganized class ever. Labs were useless/poorly organized. Lectures were taught in a counter intuitive order. And for our research project, we were given zero resources and little instruction (my group was really frustrated because we were sent an email the day before we were going to collect data, that our project wouldn't work and then the prof was like btw i'm going out of town and will be unreachable for 2 weeks, good luck suckers!), we managed to create a whole new experiment in a day, and preform it successfully with almost no help and no resources (and I did really well on it, ha!), but it was really unprofessional and frustrating that we were put in that situation, especially because we were one of the only groups prepared in the first place. Also (and this was more laughable than anything else) guess what we didn't cover at all in my MARINE SCIENCE class. Fish! We talked about every single other type of organism that lives in the ocean (plants, phytoplankton, algae, invertebrates, mammals, and reptiles) but not fish. How stupid is that?! Basically this class was an enormous fail, and I regret taking it.
Besides Marine Science and general course overlap, the only other issues I had with UQ were generally just bad organization issues. Mainly, that our final schedule came out in May (1 month before exams) which made it really inconvenient to plan end of semester travel plans. This was really annoying for us Study Abroad kids, because people are trying to get home or travel with a limited amount of time, and those things require advanced planning.
And my last ranty thing… printing at UQ. Any of my friends who go to school here and are reading this will share in my pain. Something that should take mere minutes, but takes sometimes over an hour here. Basically, not only does it cost an extravagant amount to print here (we don't get a printing budget), most classes require that you print assignments and turn them in with an attached cover sheet. And since most of my assignments were long lab write ups (lots that had color figures that required the even more expensive color printing) I was printing a ton this semester. Now if it was just the price I wouldn't be complaining so much… the main issue is that it was a rare day indeed when the printers didn't fuck something up. For over a month, the printers would not let you print from a UQ computer, only as USB drive, which was hard because printing from a USB drive while faster, will not let you print individual pages… so let's say the printer had messed up a page and you needed to reprint, or you ran out of money in the middle of the print job… well you're out of luck sucker, you have to reprint the ENTIRE job and pay the extra money! See how this is frustrating? Also there were certain printers that if there were "insufficient funds" would take all the money you had left, not print, and then charge you fully for the job again when you attempted to reprint. Basically printing at UQ is hell, and I had no other choice because our house doesn't have a printer.
Okay, now to reflect on some of the wonderful things I learned/experienced at UQ this semester. One of the things that I found the most valuable this semester was the lab write ups. I had to do them for every single one of my 5 classes, and while it was horrible having 5 extremely long lab reports due over the course of 2 weeks (that's another thing about how classes are constructed at this school most courses have a large final assignment due one of the last weeks of the semester AND then a final on top of it), I found that I got really good at writing them. Writing experiments up in journal format for publishing is a skill I've only practiced once at Wash U, but it's something that I will dearly need when I go on to get my doctorate, and do research in science. Also next semester I'm going to try and get the paleoenvironmental research that I've been working on for the last 2 years published, so it was excellent to get so much practice!! I loved that this was a skill I was able to obtain here that I will get to apply when I get home.
Another thing I was so happy to learn about when I was here was specifically about AUSTRALIA's conservation issues, and environmental politics. America is extremely focused on our own shit, so it's nice to get a different perspective! I intentionally took classes that would do this and was not disappointed. I'm actually here at an interesting time… the current Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is not well liked by any Aussies. But environmentalists and scientists especially hate him. He's a climate change denier… and he basically pulled all of the funding from Australia's equivalent of the EPA, and approved dumping of coal waste of the GBR. So, many of my biologist and ecologist professors just got their funding cut and are not pleased with him. This was such an interesting (though perhaps fairly biased) view of environmental politics in Australia, and it was a perfect exchange experience to have for environmentalist (we're actually called greenies here!) me!
Though there were negatives about having lots of professors teaching the same class, it did give me the opportunity to learn from so incredibly cool and passionate scientists! My course coordinator for terrestrial was a crocodilian paleontologist, and has done some really cool research with dinosaur tracks in WA. One of the professors who lectured in 2 of my courses specializes in dugongs (kinda like manatees) and told the best stories about her marine biology experiences!!! Another of my professors was the main consultant on the Deep Sea episode of Oceans and one of the most interesting lecturers at UQ (This was such a cool story, I happened to watch the documentary he created the night before his lecture about that topic, I realized he was covering the same material in the same order in the documentary and went up after class to ask him about it… and, yes, he was the one who picked the organisms they talked about :). My paleoceanography prof was so funny, and approachable, he taught every lecture, and made the material relevant and fun! My prof who took us on our Heron Island trip was so sweet, and her enthusiasm for the ocean and the trip was a gift for the students. In short, I'm so happy that I was able to learn with so many amazing teachers this semester!
Finally, thank you UQ for taking advantage of being so close to so many cool places, and taking us to them on field trips. As you can tell from my numerous uni trip posts, it was a huge part of what made my time in Australia so very special. And thank you Wash U for paying for me to go on all of these trips! It was a big part of the reason I choose this program, but Wash U probably paid around 2K worth of field trip costs for me this semester… which I think is significantly more than most students (I was in three courses that took field trips).
Really, this was been such a wonderful and knowledge filled semester! I've done much better in my classes than I thought I would, considering the amount I've been traveling haha, and learned so much during my time here. I think I defiantly prefer Wash U (sorry UQ!), and I'm excited to go back, but I will always cherish this semester and some of the wonderful opportunities that I've been fortunate enough to have studying abroad in Australia.
P.S. I realize that this post has a sense of finality to it… and yes the semester is ending, but I'm traveling around Australia (and New Zealand) for another month and hope to continue blogging since I'm not finished with my travel experiences yet! So keep checking the blog for updates!
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