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First Year At University
Of gaol Even the twelve hours I had, I didn't have to attend, you know it wasn't compulsory except for three of the tutorials. You decided for yourself if you want to go, if you think it's worth it. Well, I
It go a lot in first term - and suddenly bang, it's the end of term, got three essays due and a test. And my tutor picks this time to _ . me that I'm supposed to be doing two hours in the library for every hour in class.
Anna (a Science student): It wasn't so much the timetable that surprised me. In fact if you count all the lab sessions as well as lectures got more classes now than at school. Twenty-three hours. It's the Fact that you're on your own. I mean I know the teachers are still there and the demonstrator will have you in a prac. if you stuck on or show you how to do an experiment. But if you don't do work, that's your decision. They leave you to plan all your own
Work. books in each for correction, the teacher would come round and ask you why keep at you till you did it. Here it's not the teacher's problem if don't do work or get good marks - it's yours.This new way of life brings freedom, therefore, but it can create other pressures.
David (an Economics student from Hong Kong , who completed his last two years of high school in Australia ): I live in a Hall where I do own cooking. It's much cheaper than the residences where they provide meals, but I have to allow time to buy food and for cooking : :leaning. Also, I can cook proper Chinese food and not eat Australian food which is all right for some but not my stomach. So it time, but I prefer it.
But perhaps the biggest problem of all comes from the sheer size of modern urban universities. Helen, a country girl beginning a degree in Science, reflects this view:
Uni. is just so big. So impersonal. One of my classes - Political science has three hundred students in it. That's incredible. At school, the biggest class I was ever in was thirty. Here the lecturers don't know your name - how can they? You pass in the corridor and you think `Hey, Dr Barrington, I'm in your class. Hey, don't you notice me?' and they just look right through you as though they've seen you before ... total strangers.
There will be other staff of course, such as tutors who lead small groups, who do know your name and who are helpful to individuals, espesially new students. But Helen is right; academics are often remote.
Australian secondary school
the teacher's problem
apparently casual nature
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