At Northeastern, I’ve gotten pretty good about not buying expensive textbooks. I know that lots of them are at the library, or I buy electronic copies off of Amazon, or I’ll split the cost of one with a friend who’s in the same class. I was worried about textbook prices coming to Sydney though because I don’t know any of the resources that I know about back in the states. As it turns out though, I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to buy a single textbook. Most of my classes only have “recommended” texts, and all of them are in one of the school’s libraries.
What I did have to buy was lab manuals. I am in four classes and each one of them has a laboratory component. Of these, three require me to either buy the lab manual or print it myself. When I did the math the printing cost me just as much as buying them, so I opted to buy each one. However, they weren’t expensive, ranging from $10-14 each. I also had to pay to go on a field trip with one of my classes. While it was a blast, and very educational, I believe the price of it was something that would have been covered for me back in the US.
So far my classes feel pretty much the same as my classes at Northeastern. They meet less times a week–only once or twice rather than 3-4–but the teaching styles are relatively similar. One nice thing about University of Sydney that Northeastern doesn’t have is each lecture is recorded and put on BlackBoard. This means that if you have to miss class, or if you want to listen to the lecture again for revision, you have it right at your fingertips. It takes some of the pressure off when you’re taking notes, because you know that if you miss something you can just go back later and write it down.
I appreciate the sheer size of University of Sydney when it comes to classes. Because the university is much larger than Northeastern there are many more classes that are offered. Even though I’m still taking courses that apply to my degree, many of my friends are able to take classes like “The US from a world perspective” or “Sports culture in Australia,” and it’s really cool to see how many options there are. My individual classes are still pretty small, except for one, because I’m in higher-level biology and geology classes, which is nice because I get to make a better connection with my teachers.
To anyone coming to Sydney to blow off all their classes–don’t. My classes are very difficult, there’s lots of work, and I’m already stressed about my grades. The “fun” classes that my friends are in still require lots of work. Now, that does not by any stretch mean don’t come. The classes I’m in are extremely interesting and highly rewarding, I’m really glad I get the opportunity to take them.
Class mates on field trip for class!
This is one of the stations where we collected data on our trip. From this vantage point we took long-exposure photos to tell where the rip currents and other underwater geography was located.
