Week Six

Hello and welcome back to my humble blog! I hope everyone is doing well and I'd like to let everyone know that I am still alive, still healthy, and still having a great time here in Australia. It's hard to believe this is already my sixth week of blogging. At the completion of this week, my semester will officially be halfway over. Wow! I've said this before, but I am really amazed at how incredibly quickly the time has gone by. Before I get started talking about this week's topic (Australian academics) I would just like to clarify something about the photographs in this week's entry. They are not in any way relevant to the topic, I simply haven't had many phot-ops (or at least haven't thinking about taking photos) so I just decided to include some pictures I thought were appealing (even thought I am still very much a novice photographer). These four photos were all taken during my trip to Sydney three weeks ago at the Royal Botanic Gardens. They're not important landmarks of any kind, they just look very lovely.

So, as you can guess, being six weeks into the semester means my workload has begun to pick up significantly. I must admit the stress I'm accustomed to feeling normally at the end of a semester has already hit me so far. Luckily, all the due dates have been outlined in the syllabi, so I am able to plan and manage my time around them. I have just recently completed a 2500 word essay and am currently halfway through another. One of the difficulties of going to school in a place like Australia, is that I often forget that I'm not simply on vacation and am actually going to school. But no worries, as I continue to take my studies seriously. In fact, I find I am able to devote even more time to my homework as I do not have the struggle of balancing my jobs on top of my assignments.

One huge and very obvious difference between Australian and American academics is the grading scale. In Australia, the highest attainable grade is a High Distinction or HD. The next highest is a Distinction, after that a Credit, a Pass, and finally a Fail. Getting As is something I strive for in America, and normally achieve after putting in the necessary amount of work. However, in Australia, an HD is almost like an A+ with extra credit, they are very rarely handed out, and only in honor of truly outstanding work. I did not receive an HD on my first assignment (a very small and short essay) but I hope to get one on every assessment from this point forward.

Another huge difference between the Australian and American university experience is the way in which students interact with their instructors. Australian culture seems to be slightly less formal than American culture. Students commonly refer to their lecturers by their first name, and there is a very level playing field between student and teacher, which I find very nice for facilitating discussion. However, I must admit I am a little uncomfortable calling my professors by his or her first name. I still from time to time refer to my lecturers as Doctor (insert last name) simply because that's what I'm used to, and it just feels right to me for some reason.

Well, that's all I've got for this week. The weather seems to be getting nicer and nicer each day in Wagga, and we've had a string of gorgeous days as of late. The majority of my days have been spent in front of a computer at the library, but I am taking a trip to the Gold Coast in Queensland next week so I'm quite excited for that. Because of this, next week's blog post will be later in the week as I won't have access to a computer during the first few days. But I can assure that there will be new and very interesting pictures to supplement my next few posts.