Classes

So this week is Easter week and as much as I would love to tell you guys all about it, Easter week isn’t over because it melts into Monday here. So I will write about Easter next week. This week I will talk about classes. I have been going to classes for about a month and a half now and am loving it.

I think the biggest adjustment class wise was just the fact that UTS is a city campus whereas I am used to a campus that is isolated in the middle of the forest. It took some getting used to that I have to avoid business people and traffic signals on the way to class. But after getting used to the sound of cars constantly I was able to settle in quite nicely.

This is an eco-friendly apartment building across from UTS. The sides are covered in vines and plants.

Classes here tend to be more hands on. There are a lot more labs than there would be in the states. Classes include field trips and debates and constant lab work. I really like that part of UTS. I tend to understand things better when I have hands-on examples so I have been doing well in my classes.

The labs here are great. I have one lab in the superlab where we have access to some pretty dangerous chemicals and a lot of high-tech equipment. I have had access to some of the latest technologies of labs and feel super lucky. My other lab is a microbiology where we are growing bacteria. Again this is a super innovative lab where we have access to some of the newest microbiology equipment. I like this lab the most. We work a lot with fire and plating organisms which I did a lot of in high school. It was cool to get back in the swing of things. I made me feel good to be back in an area of science that is so hands on but I already have a lot of history in. I already knew how to plate bacteria and how to properly handle contaminated equipment. It made the transition that much easier.

We have to wear lab coats and goggles here 

The lectures are pretty interesting in most of my classes and most of the lectures use a website like Kahoot or Socrative that allow the students to personally interact with the lecturer and ask anonymous questions. I love that; I’m always nervous to ask questions in class for fear of sounding stupid but a lot of the teachers allow you to ask your questions to them directly or so that you don’t have the pressure of 200 eyes staring at you.

This is the business building where I have all my Stats classes 

The outside looks like a building out of a Dr. Suess book and the inside looks like a game of Jenga 

Here at UTS I am listed as a first year which has been difficult for me because I am in a second year mindset in a bunch of classes where this is everyone’s first year at University (They call it Uni here) They have taken a lot of steps to ease students into university life and pressures. I sometimes find this annoying and repetitive because I have already transitioned to this mindset and I already have a system that works well with me at University. It took a little adjustment to be taught how to adjust again but it just made the first couple of weeks of class pretty easy.

Staircase in UTS library 

So the grading is different here at UTS, a D here is actually an A. So here I am technically a straight D student. I love trying to freak out my mom by telling her that.

UTS clock tower outside the Library 

Overall I have done really well here so far academically. I have been praised in some of my classes and have made some really good friends and lab partners. UTS is a great school, even considered one of the Ivy league school here is Australia and I am having a great time here.