So after my lengthy hiatus from classroom learning I ventured back into the world of academia this past Monday. Luckily it was a smooth transition back into the process of learning. My four classes are Environmental Economics, Game Theory, Social Movements & Change, and Religion & Violence. All of my professor seem to be very down to earth and insightful, which is definitely a good thing. It's hard to tell which courses will be difficult, interesting, etc. in the first week especially since classes only meet for a total of two hours a week for lectures (some classes have tutorials which account for additional class time). Most of what was covered this past week was introductory aspects of the course like going over syllabi and whatnot. My class size ranges from about 20 to 80 and most of them are strongly focused on lectures with a bit of discussion thrown in. Hopefully the portion of the classes dedicated to discussion will increase as the semester progresses and people become more comfortable interacting in class.
Unfortunately due to an issue of transferring credit from University of Canterbury back to Northeastern I will have to change my Religion & Violence course out with Modern World History. I'm have not been a huge fan of history courses in the past, but I realized after reading over the course description that much of contemporary history is really interesting to me I just don't know a whole lot about it. Hopefully there won't be anymore requirement issues with my classes and that history class will be interesting (it meets tomorrow so I should have a general idea of what the course is about after lectures). It was slightly frustrating to have to deal with switching out courses, but I'm sure it'll all end up fine and while I enjoyed the first few lectures of Religion & Violence it wasn't exactly what I had imagined the class to be when I first signed up for it a few weeks ago.
My overall first impressions of classes are that they aren't a whole lot different from classes at Northeastern, obviously the student demographic is different. I hope that this difference will become more pronounced as discussion and interaction between students takes place over the course of the semester. Aside from that though the professors and the way the lectures are set-up is very similar to how it is back in Boston. One other difference I noticed was that professors enforce the use of the campus library and actual physical books as sources rather than the internet more than they do back home. This might be due to the fact that most of the classes I took back home assigned papers that required minimal sources and citation, but even so professors here seem to make it more of a requirement (and not an option) to use literary sources over the internet. This is all fine by me, I just hope I remember how to hold a large hardcover text from the library, it's been oh so long.
For a large portion of this past week they had tents sent up on a few of the quads representing student clubs for people to walk around a peruse. I went around with a few friends and managed to sign up for the ultimate frisbee club and the commerce society. The latter of the two is mainly a social club that has parties and barbecues, so I figured it'd be a good way to meet some new people. The ultimate frisbee club meets tomorrow to go over basic skills and rules so I'm dragging all my flatmates along to see if I can convince any of them to join up as well. The league meets every week on monday nights and seeing as how my body has been desperately lacking anything resembling physical exercise for awhile I figured it would be a good way to stay in shape. I also looked at a hiking and cricket club (those are two separate clubs, although a combination of those two could be kind of interesting). I'm planning on going to a hiking (or as the New Zealanders call it, tramping) club meeting first before deciding whether or not to join. I figure I'll be able to gauge how intense it is from the meeting because I enjoy going on casual hikes, but I would hardly consider myself a veteran hiker. We'll see what happens with the cricket club, I was trying to find a club that was very open to beginners, but I'm not sure if that exists here. The people and information at the booths seemed to indicate that the clubs weren't entirely beginning friendly, but I plan on keeping my eyes and ears open about it (I think I'd be a damn good cricket player once I got the hang of it).
Aside from classes and clubs day I spent a lot of time lounging around this past week, letting my body get used getting up early for classes (this involved a fair amount of napping). Luckily my schedule isn't super demanding, I only have two days of early classes and no friday classes (aside from a bi-weekly tutorial for environmental economics). It was probably good that I rested up this week though because I'm pretty sure all my flatmates were sick this week. Some illnesses lasted longer than others, but I managed to avoid coming down with anything (which may be the first time in history that's ever happened to me seeing as how I'm always getting sick).
This past weekend I went to a rugby game with some friends, which was fun. I can't say I followed the entire game, but it was fun to see how much fans get into and try to work out the rules. After the game we went out into the city and went to a decent number of bars. The first of which was a sports bar where everyone was watching the last bit of the cricket match that was on. New Zealand ended up winning so everyone there was very pumped (I did my best to act like a thrilled native, but I don't think I quite pulled it off, my accent still needs a bit of work). However I guess the big nights to go out here are mainly Thursday and Saturday. There were a decent number of people out at the bars, but they weren't packed by any means. Oh well, I guess that just means I'll have to go out into the city centre again this coming weekend (I know, I know, I lead such a tough life).
It rained straight through Saturday and everyone in our flat pretty much laid around for the day, which was fine by me because I love lazy days. We were going to go out to a flat warming party for someone who is friends with my flatmate Zach, but the weather was awful and the party had already died down by the time we were ready to head out. It was fun to just stay in the flat with all the roomies and hang out though. I've started to realize that what I've really enjoyed about the experience so far is just meeting all the new people. Talking and hanging out with people is what I really enjoy the most whether it be here or back home. The first questions people usually ask you after a trip are along the lines of where'd you travel to and what'd you see? While I'm still interested in traveling and seeing the country I think people oftentimes overlook the social piece of study abroad and put a lot of emphasis on the touristic aspects or maybe it's just that the social interactions are so hard to convey to people who weren't on the trip that others just don't ask about them. Regardless of the reason I've started to realize that the social part of this experience will likely be a much more prominent part than I had originally thought when I was first writing my pre-departure entry.
Also along the lines of social interactions I'd just like to say to my friends and family that I miss you all and it's been very weird to be this far away from everything that's going on back home. It's definitely a very odd feeling and I'll have to get used to it, but I'm constantly thinking about you guys and gals. If you're reading that and haven't talked to me recently then let's chat and catch up. It always helps to hear from voices back home (or from home voices that are currently abroad as well). That's about all I have to update you with for now (again sorry for the lack of pictures I swear I'll start carrying my camera around more soon).
Unfortunately due to an issue of transferring credit from University of Canterbury back to Northeastern I will have to change my Religion & Violence course out with Modern World History. I'm have not been a huge fan of history courses in the past, but I realized after reading over the course description that much of contemporary history is really interesting to me I just don't know a whole lot about it. Hopefully there won't be anymore requirement issues with my classes and that history class will be interesting (it meets tomorrow so I should have a general idea of what the course is about after lectures). It was slightly frustrating to have to deal with switching out courses, but I'm sure it'll all end up fine and while I enjoyed the first few lectures of Religion & Violence it wasn't exactly what I had imagined the class to be when I first signed up for it a few weeks ago.
My overall first impressions of classes are that they aren't a whole lot different from classes at Northeastern, obviously the student demographic is different. I hope that this difference will become more pronounced as discussion and interaction between students takes place over the course of the semester. Aside from that though the professors and the way the lectures are set-up is very similar to how it is back in Boston. One other difference I noticed was that professors enforce the use of the campus library and actual physical books as sources rather than the internet more than they do back home. This might be due to the fact that most of the classes I took back home assigned papers that required minimal sources and citation, but even so professors here seem to make it more of a requirement (and not an option) to use literary sources over the internet. This is all fine by me, I just hope I remember how to hold a large hardcover text from the library, it's been oh so long.
For a large portion of this past week they had tents sent up on a few of the quads representing student clubs for people to walk around a peruse. I went around with a few friends and managed to sign up for the ultimate frisbee club and the commerce society. The latter of the two is mainly a social club that has parties and barbecues, so I figured it'd be a good way to meet some new people. The ultimate frisbee club meets tomorrow to go over basic skills and rules so I'm dragging all my flatmates along to see if I can convince any of them to join up as well. The league meets every week on monday nights and seeing as how my body has been desperately lacking anything resembling physical exercise for awhile I figured it would be a good way to stay in shape. I also looked at a hiking and cricket club (those are two separate clubs, although a combination of those two could be kind of interesting). I'm planning on going to a hiking (or as the New Zealanders call it, tramping) club meeting first before deciding whether or not to join. I figure I'll be able to gauge how intense it is from the meeting because I enjoy going on casual hikes, but I would hardly consider myself a veteran hiker. We'll see what happens with the cricket club, I was trying to find a club that was very open to beginners, but I'm not sure if that exists here. The people and information at the booths seemed to indicate that the clubs weren't entirely beginning friendly, but I plan on keeping my eyes and ears open about it (I think I'd be a damn good cricket player once I got the hang of it).
Aside from classes and clubs day I spent a lot of time lounging around this past week, letting my body get used getting up early for classes (this involved a fair amount of napping). Luckily my schedule isn't super demanding, I only have two days of early classes and no friday classes (aside from a bi-weekly tutorial for environmental economics). It was probably good that I rested up this week though because I'm pretty sure all my flatmates were sick this week. Some illnesses lasted longer than others, but I managed to avoid coming down with anything (which may be the first time in history that's ever happened to me seeing as how I'm always getting sick).
This past weekend I went to a rugby game with some friends, which was fun. I can't say I followed the entire game, but it was fun to see how much fans get into and try to work out the rules. After the game we went out into the city and went to a decent number of bars. The first of which was a sports bar where everyone was watching the last bit of the cricket match that was on. New Zealand ended up winning so everyone there was very pumped (I did my best to act like a thrilled native, but I don't think I quite pulled it off, my accent still needs a bit of work). However I guess the big nights to go out here are mainly Thursday and Saturday. There were a decent number of people out at the bars, but they weren't packed by any means. Oh well, I guess that just means I'll have to go out into the city centre again this coming weekend (I know, I know, I lead such a tough life).
It rained straight through Saturday and everyone in our flat pretty much laid around for the day, which was fine by me because I love lazy days. We were going to go out to a flat warming party for someone who is friends with my flatmate Zach, but the weather was awful and the party had already died down by the time we were ready to head out. It was fun to just stay in the flat with all the roomies and hang out though. I've started to realize that what I've really enjoyed about the experience so far is just meeting all the new people. Talking and hanging out with people is what I really enjoy the most whether it be here or back home. The first questions people usually ask you after a trip are along the lines of where'd you travel to and what'd you see? While I'm still interested in traveling and seeing the country I think people oftentimes overlook the social piece of study abroad and put a lot of emphasis on the touristic aspects or maybe it's just that the social interactions are so hard to convey to people who weren't on the trip that others just don't ask about them. Regardless of the reason I've started to realize that the social part of this experience will likely be a much more prominent part than I had originally thought when I was first writing my pre-departure entry.
Also along the lines of social interactions I'd just like to say to my friends and family that I miss you all and it's been very weird to be this far away from everything that's going on back home. It's definitely a very odd feeling and I'll have to get used to it, but I'm constantly thinking about you guys and gals. If you're reading that and haven't talked to me recently then let's chat and catch up. It always helps to hear from voices back home (or from home voices that are currently abroad as well). That's about all I have to update you with for now (again sorry for the lack of pictures I swear I'll start carrying my camera around more soon).
1 comments:
dusseault would be proud.
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