First Weeks of School in Melbourne

Week 3 in Australia and I am still alive. My first few weeks have been successful here in Melbourne and they couldn’t be better. Classes started up a few weeks ago and the routine of school is finally starting to settle in. Although I wish it were still “summer” break here in Australia, starting university or “uni” has been very eye-opening. The university is quite urban, being situated just north of Melbourne’s central business district (CBD). It has a campus but it is much smaller than the University of Maryland’s massive layout. Many academic buildings aren’t even located on campus and instead are closer to the CBD. This is convenient for me, as I live in a student apartment complex right outside of the CBD. The typical commute to class varies between 3-10 minutes when walking, which is much shorter than my typical walk from Leonardtown to McKeldin Mall last semester, which normally took 15-20 minutes. An interesting difference I’ve noticed after meeting locals is that most students commute from their homes. They still live with their parents, causing them to travel to university via train. It takes a few of my classmates up to an hour to get to university and once they are here they have to make use of every minute they’re here due to the distance between home and school. As a classmate this can mean struggling to find convenient hours in the event of a group project. This element definitely makes it more difficult to hang out with classmates after school as well. Two weeks of university has passed and I have already noticed some interesting changes in terms of classroom culture but it’s still early and so a proper assessment of these differences will be discussed in my next blog.

This is the view of the law building just outside my apartment. I have a few lectures in the building which is very convenient.