Three weeks ago, when I went on the class field trip to Kioloa that I’ve mentioned, I had another class that also had a field trip that same weekend. The other trip was for my Evolution class, and it was to Warrah, which is a small town a couple hours north of Sydney where U. Sydney has a research facility. The purpose of that trip was to collect bees that we would then extract DNA from, and a debate part was also included. Like my trip to Kioloa, it was deemed mandatory, and could only be skipped if absolutely necessary. However, on the syllabus that I received at the beginning of the semester, the two trips were listed as being on separate weekends, so I hadn’t anticipated the problem.
Thinking it wouldn’t be an issue, I talked to my Evolution professor about the conflict. I had decided that I would choose to go to the Kioloa trip with my Coastal Processes class, because that class is more relevant for my degree, and I wanted to explain to him what the issue was and get an alternative assignment. But he told me instead that I needed to apply for “special permission,” which goes through the Office of Disability Affairs. So, I applied for special permission to miss the trip, but my application was denied because neither trip was input into the official USyd calendar that the Office looks at to determine whether to grant the special permission.
Long story short, I had to send dozens of emails to all professors involved, because both trips also clashed with a lab that I have on Friday afternoons. The whole process was stressful and, frankly, completely avoidable had the professors of both classes simply put their plans on the university calendar. During this time, I also tried to reach out to faculty advisers for the Faculty of Science, but was told that there wasn’t much I could do without the professors on board.
I did eventually get everything worked out, and wrote an essay instead of going on the trip to Warrah, but the two weeks leading up to that were extremely annoying.
Also, this critique does not extend to the specific study abroad advisers, they have been nothing but kind and helpful, this was simply a situation that they had no power in.
All this being said, my professors are all very qualified and super interesting, and I’ve been enjoying my classes immensely. My most interesting professor is Jody Webster, who is one of the professors for my Coastal Processes class. He’s spent several years researching the Great Barrier Reef and the processes that affect it, and it turns out he’s one of the authors on several of the papers I’ve read on the subject for other classes. Each class he seems to drop the name of some prominent oceanic researcher who he’s done work with, and it’s amazing to think about all the connections he has.
