The Study Begins
Posted on September 24th, 2007 by StephenHello All.Today was the first day of classes. The semester is finally upon us, it’s been a long time coming. The past two weeks have been amazing fun, with plenty happening since my last post. The last two days of International Orientation week were very full on, with activities on all day to attend. There were some funny ones, like an introduction to the many sides of British culture, but more serious and useful information regarding safety and wellbeing. The University certainly takes care of their International Students!
During the first of these days of activities, I finally ran into some other Australian students. Though it had been great meeting people from around the globe, I think homesickness would have set in pretty soon if it wasn’t for hearing some familiar voices. We met for a drink and a chat later that night.
The next day was the first of Freshers week, so the Student Residence was packed with parents dropping their kids off to their new home. It’d been quite around here for the days prior, with only a few international students and early arriver’s around. Everyone I have met has been incredibly friendly, so it’s been pretty easy to settle in. Being an international student certainly helps the initial conversation with domestic students, there’s always plenty to talk about.
Freshers week was great fun. I was a bit skeptical at first, as I’d been through it all before, but they make a much bigger deal about it over here. Needless to say, my new flat mates were keen to party right throughout the week, and I happily obliged. Unlike them, I had hardly any Induction to do as I was doing 2nd year modules, so I got it pretty easy. The week concluded and you could tell everyone had a bit of “Fresher’s Flu” from all the late nights, but it was worth it.
I’ve only had two classes so far, so I’ll reflect on all the differences at the end of this week. Cheerio!
September 25th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Hi Stephen,
Glad to here you settled into Uni ok. Good to hear your thoughts that freshers week was fab, and you partied throughout the week - hee hee. Get used to that after christmas as every week will be party week. lol.
Let us know your thoughts on the differences between lectures as that would be interesting.
You didn’t say whether your flatmates were british or other international students?
September 26th, 2007 at 5:53 am
Thanks for the comment Nick. Sounds like Christmas will be a blast!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. I’m living with 3 British students and 1 Chinese student. The British guys are from all over the country, so it’s quite a diverse background. They’ve been great though, and have really made me feel more comfortable over here. The Chinese student is fairly quite, and hasn’t been keen to do much socialising so far, but hopefully once he settles in things will get a bit more relaxed.