Orientation Week

The week of July 14^th was Orientation week at USC. And I was having someving some uncertainty about it. I wasn’t sure if I was looking forward to going back to school or not even though I’ve wanted to go back to get my teacher’s certification for a while. I think this was due to a combination of nerves (going back to school and to a new school in a different country) and believe it or not, excitement. Call me a bit of a nerd, but I actually like school. If someone could pay me to be a student in university I’d do it. And being a professor doesn’t count because they have a ton of work to do!

Anyway, so nerdy Mel, shows up at the uni just in time to register for my student card. At 8:30 in the morning. Ha! Can anyone say ‘vacation over’? *lol*

I should add here that it was a miserable day. :| Rainy and cool. A total change from the weekend.

The line up for the student cards wasn’t very long, however, the people in charge of handing out the cards told us that the machine which produces these cards wasn’t working. Surprise! So I put my name on the list after which I have a couple of hours to kill until the next session.

At 11:15 there was an info session for International Students, which looking back on it, was a bit of a waste of time. There wasn’t anything they told us that I didn’t already know. I had all my student visa info and what I needed to do in order to fulfill those requirements. And I knew where to get my health card information, etc. So lucky for me, I got to leave early. And by early I mean somewhere around 2:30-3:00 in the afternoon.

*****

The following Tuesday proved to be a more interesting day.

The faculty that I’m a part held its annual ‘student welcome’. So all the science, health, and education students got a chance to meet each other and some of the professors. I suppose that I didn’t have to attend this because there wasn’t much that they told us that was new, but I did meet a future classmate, which is always good. At least I knew one person before classes started. :)

After this session ended, the two of us headed back outdoors where a Welcome Day Market and BBQ was going on. Now this is pretty cool. All over the campus different ‘services’, I guess you could call them, are set up under tents with tables full of information for you to grab. For example, there was a bank offering student bank accounts. I stopped by to check out what their deal was and soon realized that CBA still offers the best deal of all the banks so far.

Anyway, we walked around for a bit and stopped at the BBQ tent handing out free sausages. We stopped to watch a part of the ‘official welcome’ that was taking place in front of the art gallery courtyard. There was an aboriginal group putting on a performance that a lot of people were watching. After lunch we both stopped for a free cup of tea/coffee provided by the USC Alumni.

And here ends the second day of orientation.

*****

Wednesday was another rainy day in Mooloolaba and in the morning a ‘STARTSMART’ session was held for the students in the Graduate Diploma in Education.

Finally, a session that provided some important information for me that I didn’t already have. We were introduced to some of the professors who were in charge of the different disciplines; i.e. those doing the senior phase of education (high school), the middle phase (4-7), and primary/early phase (K-7/preschool-3). We got some information regarding what our first semester would be like and what to expect from placement.

After attending this session, I can now say that I’m looking forward to getting down to work, but it’s going to be one crazy year!