So, aside from the several other cultural differences you’d expect and experience anywhere in a different country from your own, one thing that has stood out among the rest is the respect that Australians pay to the aboriginal and indigenous peoples native to Australia. Without fail, before the beginning of each class lecture, or speech given the speaker(s) make it clear that they are acknowledge that they are speaking and we are learning on their land and thank them for allowing us to do so. I’ve found this to be really interesting, especially because I was pretty ignorant before traveling to Australia and didn’t really know about the culture clash and the history that Australians have had with the aboriginal peoples of this land. Other than that, in the classroom at least, I’ve noticed that the classroom experience is very similar to what I am used to back home. The first day is kind of a “syllabus day” where the teachers go over “general housekeeping rules and things” but the way that they teach and the level of familiarity between the teacher/lecturer and the students is pretty much the same. We do have more independence here than back home, in terms of making sure we do the readings on our own, there aren’t any pop-quizzes or check-ins to see if we’ve actually done the readings, and several of my teachers have expressed that if we have a question about what happened in class that we shouldn’t email them and find out for ourselves in another way instead. What I find fascinating, and I actually like this, is that all lectures are recorded, so that way if we miss a class we can just watch the recording which is posted after every class. Attendance is different too, sometimes they take attendance and sometimes they don’t and they don’t express how it will affect your grade, if it will at all. If we want to know that we have to find out for ourselves and go and find the syllabus and read through it. Unlike, at Rollins where some teachers read word for word the syllabus and expectations. I kind of like the independence that is expected of us here and I think that the lack of daily or weekly little homework assignments will be helpful in terms of time management with our bigger assignments. It will be interesting to see if I am able to keep up with the readings since they don’t check and it’s up to me if I want to do them or not. I think I will learn a lot more than just the material but a lot about how I am as a student when put in a different environment such as this one.
