It seems crazy to me that I am already in my fourth week of classes here at Bond University: time is flying by way too fast! Now with only 10 more weeks in the semester left, I can think back on the first day of classes and how nervous I was to see what the Australian education and lecture system would offer. Luckily for me, I had my first class here with two of my Northeastern friends that I had traveled abroad with, which helped to calm my nerves as I entered that first classroom.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, lectures here are fairly similar to those at Northeastern. The teachers post lecture slides ahead of time online, and it is our job to download them and take notes on them during class. Due to the smaller class size, there is a lot more encouraging of students to ask questions and participate in class. This was similar to some of the honors classes that I had taken my first year at Northeastern before I was thrust into a lot of huge lectures. My Buddhist philosophy class is different than any other class I’ve taken, however, as the professor does not allow any sort of note taking, whether it be electronically or by hand, during the lecture. At first I was incredibly skeptical of this method of teaching as I am an avid note taker and pride myself on being able to type down word for word what professors are saying and then going back later to decode the lecture notes. However, I’ve actually found that it allows me to fully process the information that is being given in class, and I have really begun to digest and make connections while in lecture. Turns out, this Buddhist Philosophy class is my favorite so far!
Another difference I’ve noted here is that students are supposed to refer to their professors by their first names. The atmosphere here between professors an students is a lot more relaxed which was a little bit weird for me at first, but I’ve since begun to make myself call my teachers by their first names and it’s actually not so bad. Additionally, class schedules here are a bit different, as each class has only one lecture per week taught by the professor, and then a separate tutorial (almost like a recitation) taught by either the professor or a TA later on in the week. It’s definitely different from the 2 – 3 lectures per class per week that I was used to at Northeastern, but I am enjoying the free time!
Although teachers here do require student to get the textbooks for the course, I only chose to buy a text for one of my classes as the rest are either readily available at the library on campus, or can be found online. Even though textbooks here seem to be a lot less expensive than the ones required for classes at Northeastern, I still couldn’t bear the thought of spending money unnecessarily when it could be used for traveling or exploring later on in the semester!
