How to student: settling in

Publication date
Tuesday, 25 Aug 2015
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The first week I spent here really was a blur. Moving into my college, saying goodbye to my family, enrolling in courses, making new friends. How the heck do I find time to breathe, much less do my laundry? There is clearly some truth behind the myth that students only return home to their families to be fed and laundered.

I’m a hermit by nature so making friends in my first week was tricky, but much easier than high school had been. It helps that the people here in uni don’t mind if you’re a little dorky. Don’t believe me? Here’s the conversation that lead to me gaining my first friend.

The two of us are standing alone amidst a crowd of students at the college introductory barbeque

Me: Are you feeling as awkward here as I am?

Him: Probably. Don’t you know anyone here either?

Me: Nope. What are you studying?

Him: Bachelor of Science.

Me: Same here!

And in this fashion we collected a bunch of like-minded individuals to play Pokémon, Halo and D&D with. Who says nerds have no social life?

Undeniably the best day of Orientation week is Market Day. This is when different clubs and societies all set up booths in the centre of the uni so you can walk around and sign up to the ones you’re interested in. When you sign up to the science society they give you discounts for the pizza nights, public lectures and society balls that happen later in the year. Anime, caving, Kanye West, chances are if you have an interest in it there’ll be a club for it.  Oh yeah, and there’s a Quiddich team too! 

The student labs here are flippin’ AMAZING! Really long, clean lab benches where we do our experiments. And there’s TV screens hung up everywhere which are connected to a camera pointed at the lab demonstrator. So even if you can see them you can still watch them on the TV screen.

They get older students to help you in the labs so they can tell you if you’re on the right track, they also run tutorial sessions that go over the content you’re learning in the lectures. It’s apparently called Peer Assisted Learning (PAL).

I think my favourite lecturer is the biology one. He explains thing really well. The lectures typically start five minutes after the hour and end five minutes before the hour, giving you 10 minutes to get from A to B. Though they’re not fussed if you’re a little late to begin with.

I could tell you heaps more but there’s a collage welcome party about to start. The dress theme is ‘Fancy pants’ and I need to see if I brought anything other than jeans and trackies to wear. I suspect not. Note to self, pack a set of glad rags.

Until next week.

Mollie-Cule