Thursday, February 18, 2010

Back to School

So school has officially begun here at Murdoch Uni. That's what they call school, Uni (You-knee). I will come back from class and my flatmate Ashleigh will be like "how was Uni for you today?" It's interesting. My first class was on Monday at 1:30. It was integrated marketing communications. There was about 30 people in the class with me. The professor is one of the authors of our textbook, so he is pretty legit. Since that class is a third year level class, he didn't waste any time doing introductions or talking about what we would be learning about. Instead he started lecturing right away and didn't stop for an hour. Pretty intense. Especially since it was the first day of the class and the whole year. But I was glad to find out that I knew what he was talking about. It was a basic overview of what I've learned about in my past marketing classes. We will be delving more into the communications side of marketing, learning how to reach the consumer and deliver them a product that fits their needs, etc. Something that I found so interesting and funny was that they still use projectors. I haven't seen one of those since middle school! My professor actually whipped out projector sheets with the information on them. Talk about stone age! Haha. Unlike the US, each class has one lecture hour per week and then another scheduled time for a tutorial. Tutorials are more informal gatherings of a portion of the class to get together and rediscuss what was talked about in lecture that week. At our tutorial for this class we got into groups. Within these groups we will have to create a report about persuasion and the elaboration likelihood theory. Interesting! haha.

I didn't have class on Tuesday, so this was a nice break early in the week. My friend Nick and I went to the grocery store.

Wednesday I had my first photography lecture. This is a first year class, so most of the period was spent welcoming us to the class and going over what we will be doing for the semester. We have to do a project at the end kind of like a portfolio. I hope I can tune into my creative side enough to do well with this project. I'm usually not the creative type, more of the analyst/numbers type, but photography really interests me so hopefully I can do well!

Finally this afternoon I had my second marketing class, marketing management. It was a two hour long lecture with a lady who is from New Zealand. Let me tell you, her accent is so hard to listen to!! Whenever she says a word with a short e, like textbook, rest, guess, it sounds like teextbook, reest, gueeess. So annoying! It's very distracting. This class seems like it will be interesting as well. The class is divided up into percentages. There are about 3 assignments, a presentation and a final test. One of the assignments is a huge project, a marketing plan. We have to develop a plan for a waste management and sustainability organization in Southern WA (western australia). This is 40% of our grade! And it's done in a group. We then have to present the plan to the actual organization for 10% of our grade. I am not nervous about being able to come up with something, I am just nervous to do this kind of work in a group.

Sometimes during classes I feel like I am not picking up on some things. Especially humor. A professor will say something and people will laugh but I don't get it. That's how I've felt a lot of the time here, like I'm on the outside of some big inside joke. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up on things as the semester goes on.. I don't want to feel like an outsider. All in all, classes are in full swing and I think it will be a great learning experience for me.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Brianna!

    Thanks so much for continuing your updates on your Australian adventures! So glad to hear you are adjusting well to the Aussie lifestyle. Sounds like your classes are going well so far at the Uni, and that there are no shortage of opportunities to advance your social curriculum as well!!!!! keep up the good work, Brianna! P.S. ask Megan about her new "thing"! Love, Sue

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