One Month In
It has been a while! I am about a month into my time in Melbourne (and I know this because I had to update my phone plan for the next month!), and I am loving it here. I am settled into my housing, my classes, and general life here in Melbourne. After finishing my orientation with Arcadia in Sydney, we flew down to Melbourne and moved into our apartments. I am living in a place called Student Village which is apartment style housing. I have my own room, a common room, and my three other roommates have their own rooms too. I have a kitchen and living room area.
I am going to be very honest here, I lived in Babbitt last semester, and this place is way better. The building is new so there are modern facilities, light and airy rooms, and the front desk is extremely helpful. We have our own pool, gym, and two common areas with games and places to relax. You can borrow anything from the front desk, from board games to vacuums! The only downside is the laundry. It costs AU$4 to wash and AU$3 to dry. Highway robbery!
It is also a very independent environment. There are RA’s who have events and activities to do, but they are completely optional, which is perfect for me. I am one of those types of people who do not care for those kinds of things. Not that no one should like them, but I definitely like a more independent lifestyle. I have friends who live in one of the colleges, called University College, and they had a whole orientation week with activities planned for them 24/7 which they had to go to. It sounds like they had a lot of fun, and it was a great way for them to meet people in their building, but I know I would not have gotten as much out of it as they did. Nevertheless, I love that there are options for housing for different types of people like me and my friends.
Moving on to classes… which are awesome! I am in four classes: The Underworld and the Afterlife, The Age of Alexander the Great, Marine Environments, and Genetics in the Media. As I am a Classical studies major I wanted to take some courses here that would fulfill some of my requirements, and I am also pre-med and a Biology minor, so I wanted to take some relevant courses for that too. I think I found a great mix of classes which are intellectually stimulating, but also not too tough and give me time to explore the city! The class system is different here, as the University of Melbourne is such a big place, that many fo the classes are in lecture format, and the teachers record each class and put it on Blackboard afterwards, in case you miss class or want to look back on what happened on a certain day.
Overall this city is amazing and I am so happy I chose to come here. It is a beautiful city with so much to discover. The University of Melbourne is also a great place to be too.
Next post I’ll let you know about some of the adventures I have been going on in the surrounding area!
