School

By popular demand, this post is strictly about Deakin, my classes and the people I have encountered at school.

In general, the school work, I feel is less demanding than at home. With that said, it is definitely left more up to the students to get things done. Typically for classes there are two tests and one major assignment. Attendance counts only for tutorials, and not for lectures. This is apparent too because as weeks go on, less and less people show up to lectures. This is common because lectures are put online. Not only are the presentations put online, but recorded lectures are as well, so you actually get to see your professor, or hear them.

I am taking four classes at Deakin and one online for Marist. The classes at Deakin I am taking are: Marketing Management, Organizational Behavior, Public Relations and Australia Today. The Marist class I am taking is Gender, culture and communications.

Marketing Management I have with Lauren, Christina and Ryan, so we are all working on our project together where we have to convince generation Y to become organ donors. We have to make a PSA and a business plan, but it is as creative as we want. The lecturer is a bit dull, and there is a slight language barrier because he is from Sri Lanka.

Organization Behavior I have with Lauren, Abby and Ryan, and for our big project I am working with Abby and Ryan because we have the same tutorial professor. This project we have to look at businesses and see if bosses or managers have an effect on absenteeism and turnover rates. The lecturer for this class is also boring, but not as bad as the marking professor, but I have a different man for my tutorial who knows his stuff.

Public Relations is really interesting. I guess this is because it is my major, so it is good I enjoy the class, but my professor really knows what he is doing and has tons of experience in the world of Public Relations in Australia. Also, in a lecture of 100-200 people he knows who I am, notices when I am in class and likes to make it known I am America. I have him for my tutorial also, and he always asks me to read what I have written or ask me to recite a definition. I think it is because I have an accent and in most classes when I speak, everyone turns to see where the different accent is coming from. The past few classes we had to make an eight step plan for an imaginary scenario that needed assistance of a PR agent. My professor would always make me read for my group, but I guess it is good he knows who I am by name in such a large class. We have two quizzes for this class, a final and a big project. I don't mind any of the work and I am learning a lot.

Australia today is a class for international students. The woman who teaches it is a character though. She is incredibly nice, but she does love to hear herself speak. She also can talk about sheep and geography for hours. (Those are her two specialties.) For the class I had to make a presentation of Indigenous Australia, which I have researched in the past for a class in high school and history at Marist. We also had to attend a footy game and that paper is the main one for the class. Last week we had a guest lecturer on ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp) which was nice to get a break from sheep lady. Overall, the class is nice to have being an international student.

My Marist online class seems oddly easy. I don't think the professor has time to make it more demanding, or she just does not care. When I wanted to get permission to get into the class she forwarded my email to someone else to answer me, and all we have to do is make weekly posts in the forum, respond to someone's post and write three papers. One paper I have already gotten a 95 on, and the next one is due this week on a company with a woman in power. I picked PepsiCo and Indra Nooyi.

The people I mainly hang out with are international students. We are all from North America, but mainly the states, minus Lilly from Mexico and Jenn from Canada. The girls on my floor are all very nice and Australian, and for dinner every night I sit with the internationals, the girls on my floor and other people from the block, which is what my building is nicknamed. Through the internationals we have all met other Australians from their buildings and all of the RAs love the internationals too.

The campus I am on is small, but it has a lot of greenery and the lakes are nice. The other day actually reached high 60s, which it has not in a couple weeks or so, so Jenn and I did homework by the lake in the grass. We felt like the only two on campus because Deakin is a big suitcase school, so a lot of students go home on the weekends. It is sometimes a little too quiet on the weekends, but it is nice to spend time with the internationals and the RAs.

This week is the famous Rip Curl Pro surf competition at Bells Beach, which is right down the road from Geelong in Torquay. This is the biggest surf competition in Australia that surfers come to from all over the world. This year is the 50th anniversary of the competition, so I am pretty excited to go watch.

I know I said this post was only about school, but to get excited for the surf competition, here is a video I took of Byron Bay's beautiful water...if it shows up.