We got through pretty quickly. They checked our passports and visas and gave us a stamp on our enrolment forms. Then they told us to go to the booth for our college, but we aren't able to enrol until after we have a meeting with our program convenor. For Public Health, we have a group meeting tomorrow. We made sure to ask to make sure that we weren't forgetting anything, but we weren't.
Janice was hungry, so I went with her to try and find some food. She didn't want anything at the cafes, but got some salt and vinegar chips at the ANU Union shop. I also bought some more cheddar Shapes. We had about a half hour to kill between getting our visas checked and our next event, which was the Science Tours for the people in the College of Science, Medicine, and Environment. While we were waiting, we met up with Dozie and someone that he met that was also from Nigeria and studying Environment.
I thought that the science tours were going to be useful, but I don't think they were actually useful for Public Health students. From the sounds of it, our classes will be scattered throughout the campus. There isn't a specific building for Public Health and I think it will depend on what classes we take. For example, I hope to take the Intro to Indigenous Development class, and that's linked with the anthropology classes. At least we got a workout and did see some more of the campus. The tour before just showed us the outside of buildings, but this one actually took us inside.
After the tour, we went to go find Bec. She went to a seminar about time management and managing your reading. She was in Copeland, and we were going to the PARSA barbecue together. We got there before her seminar was out, so we waited on a bench outside and talked. We then went in and grabbed big wall planner/calendar things. I was glad to get one. Then we headed back to the Hancock building for the PARSA barbecue. They had sausage (big surprise in Australia, I know), burgers, and vegetarian patties. I got a burger, but I wasn't convinced that it was cooked all the way through. I just ate around the outside.
I also met my SIGN mentor. She's studying Public Policy and is from Myanmar. We just kind of introduced ourselves to each other. Then the President and other representatives from PARSA were talking, so we went to listen.
After that, I met up again with Janice and Bec. Bec introduced us to another guy, I think his name was Alex, who was also studying his Master of Public Health. He is a doctor and is already a student. We also met another girl, whose name I forgot, who will be entering our class this semester. She is from Grenada. We talked about the different classes that are offered and how the classes are set up. Alex said that the classes are really small, which is a good thing, especially coming from Hope. A lot of them even include participation as part of your grade. I'll meet up with them again tomorrow at our MPH meeting. I'm excited to see how many new students there will be, since this is the middle of the year and not many people start now.
After the barbecue, we went to an essay writing seminar for Postgrad students. I was originally going to go to the store at that time, but I thought that it would be helpful, plus it was too cold to walk all the way to Canberra Centre. I was wrong about it being useful. It was so boring, because I already know how to write a paper. I figured they'd give us useful things, or tell us how our papers should be different than those we wrote in undergrad. It wasn't. It was very basic. I was actually really surprised when one guy at my table said that he never had to write a paper with references in it before. I really wonder where he got his Bachelors from and what it was in! Seriously, who has never written a paper before?!
I pretty much facebook chatted with Caitlin, my old roommate, on facebook chat and played Angry Birds the entire time. Then there was a small break. I talked to Janice and Bec, and we decided to leave. It was also really frickin' cold in the room where the seminar was held.
We decided to go to Union Court to buy some hot drinks. The first cafe that we went to was about to close, so we went to the other one, Sizzle Cafe. It was the cafe that Janice and I had stopped by this morning. They have a very ecclectic variety of food. They have sushi/Japanese food, gelato, coffee/hot chocolate, soft drinks, muffins, and liquor. They also had this special offer for one of their other locations for a 3 course dinner. It's an interesting place. Anyway, I got a hot chocolate and some banana bread. The hot chocolate was a bit too chocolately (I'm not a huge fan of chocolate, but it's better than coffee and I was cold) but the banana bread was really good.
A little after five, we headed over to ANU bar. They had a "speed-friending" thing that was going on at five. It was like speed dating, but obviously the intention was to make friends and not find someone to date, although the decorations would suggest otherwise. I wasn't going to go at first, but Janice and Bec convinced me to go. It just sounded awkward and not my cup of tea. It was rather awkward, and rather loud. Besides all of the people talking, they were playing music really loudly.
They had tables set up and I was on the side that had to rotate every three minutes. There was free candy and free beer, but obviously I didn't care about the beer since I don't drink. It was weird because it was supposed to be just to make friends, but the decorations were Valentine's Day themed. They also had a prize for the first couple to "hook up" because they'd win a kilo of Turkish Delight. Kinda weird. We left at the end of the rotations, so I don't know if anyone won that prize after we left.
Janice went off the opposite direction to go home, but Bec and I walked home together. She lives in Toad Hall, but that's in the same direction as unilodge, so she walked me back before heading to her flat. When I got back, I checked out the different classes offered for MPH so that I knew what I wanted to enrol for tomorrow. I also went through a bunch of my pamphlets that I've received over the past few days. I got a planner today at the PARSA barbecue, so I also wrote stuff down in that.
I also decided that I didn't want to go and have to bring a slow cooker back from the Canberra Centre, so I ordered it online. I also ordered a set of sheets and pillow so that I could get free shipping, since I needed them anyway. Yay free shipping!
Today was another busy day, but I don't think I'll be having many calm days until I graduate!
(I just took one picture today, so I just uploaded it on here. This is the ANU bar during the speed-friending)
I only had to write one paper in my whole undergrad degree and it was during the first year of my degree in the practically irrelevant communications unit they make all BSc students take... and I am now eligible to undertake postgraduate studies in quite a few fields at most unis, including health sciences if I desired.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing is I know at Curtin we have some postgrad students who have actually undertaken less formal study than the undergrads just because they left high school in year 10/11 and worked for 20 years. Plus, since going straight to PG studies from UG is actually fairly uncommon in Australia, many postgrad haven't had to write a paper for quite a while and thus could quite easily have forgotten how or at least have become rusty when it comes to research papers. It's not really something you do often in many fields.
We also have quite a few students from overseas who take postgrad as their first qualification taught in English. I've found that not only is writing a paper in English hard for them because it's in English, but also because they often structure papers differently in different countries. The referencing structure can be different.
All in all, I'd say the reason they had a session like that called 'for postgraduates' is because it's actually a wide ranging group with greatly varying skills in that area and thus you can't really assume any level of competency in that field. Plus a lot of mature age and new international students might feel embarrassed walking into a general session full of English speaking, young undergrads and this helps them.
Also, is there any reason you jumped from font size 10.5 to 13.5 a couple of times? I thought I was going crazy the first few times I read it as I wasn't sure if the font was changing size or if I was just hallucinating :v ...
I second the question on the fonts - I thought I was going nuts! ha!
DeleteI was trying to make it bigger for my mom and Jacki, but I guess it just randomly made parts bigger or smaller depending on what point of the blog I was on at the time of changing it. Sorry about that.
DeleteAnd I wasn't the only one that thought it was weird that he never wrote a research paper. I guess that going to a Liberal Arts school, though, means that, on average, we write more papers than people who don't.
I agree with Rohan; people come from a wide variety of backgrounds when they start graduate school. For example, my friend Karla got her undergrad degree in Art History before she got her PhD in Microbiology and Betsy was a CPA before she came back and got a PhD in Immunology. Schools need to make sure everyone's skill set is brought up to the level needed for their program.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, it sounds like you'll be getting to know your campus pretty well if all your classes are scattered throughout. I'm looking forward to seeing lots of pictures!
btw, I thought the changes in font sizes were done purposefully to highlight certain parts of your post, kind of like Grandma Eileen's CAPS! haha ;)