 It's not Houghton. Jenn's photos of her Aussy campus show a different climate in addition to some interesting architecture. (Click on photos for larger images.)
One week down (under) . . .
My first week of classes is completed, and overall it’s been an interesting week trying to get my schedule finalized and getting used to taking classes in Australia. My original plan for taking classes during my time abroad was to take three classes for my major, psychology, and one class which would transfer back to Michigan Tech as a general education class. I successfully registered for all of these and then found out that I needed to go to an orientation session for the psychology classes. This was fine with me, I figured that I would be able to meet some people in my classes as well as learn what the expectations would be of me throughout the semester. Walking into the lecture hall for orientation was quite a shock to me—there were more than five hundred psychology students, and the majority of these were only first-year students!
 The psychology program is very new at Michigan Tech, and back home most of the classes consist of roughly thirty students so this was quite a difference. I found a seat in the lecture hall and prepared myself for my first Australian lecture. The head of the psychology department gave a brief overview of the program at Curtin University as well as brief presentations from a number of other lecturers and office assistants. Orientation then split into different groups pertaining to the diverse range of classes Curtin has to offer. I planned on taking Abnormal Psychology and Social Psychology during my time in Australia. Along with roughly two hundred other students, I met with the professors and found out what would be expected of me in the following twelve weeks of class. What an intimidating experience!
As I said in last week's entry, the students at Curtin begin in depth study of their major so I felt at a slight disadvantage considering that I had only taken three psychology courses and the fact that I had switched to the major less than one year ago. After some careful examination of the course outline, I decided to wait and take all three of the psychology courses back at home. After deciding this, I had to go find Penny (one of our advisors) and try to figure out some other classes to take. I chose two classes: Australian Studies and Introduction to Indigenous Australians and figured that my scheduling changes were over. All of this occurred during orientation week, so I wasn't worried at all about my schedule.
 I had no classes scheduled for Monday, so I spent the time relaxing and gearing up for my class on Tuesday, the first of which was entitled Architecture and Culture. Heather and I had planned on taking the class together, and we were excited to start classes. Class was scheduled from nine to ten on Tuesday mornings along with a tutorial on Thursday afternoons which we would find out more about in the first lecture. When we arrived at the lecture, we discovered that the lecture that day was actually two hours and the tutorials involved field trips for which we were responsible for our own transportation. After hearing this, we decided not to take the class and our scheduling adventures began again. I chose to take the Introduction to Australian Sports, completing my trio of classes studying various aspects of Australia. I think I’ve finally got a schedule that will work pretty well for me, and all of the classes transfer back to Michigan Tech. I’ll let you know as we get further into the semester how everything is going!
We haven’t gone on our surfing trip yet, we’re planning on going in two weeks, but right now it’s time for me to head off to the beach! Hope everyone is enjoying the snow back at Michigan Tech! As always, let me know if you have any comments or questions! Until next week,
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