Study Abroad in Australia: Back to School

Cheers, mate! Welcome to Sydney, and the University of New South Wales. It's been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened because there is so much to do in Sydney. I've visited the Opera House twice and seen a theatre performance, visited the downtown area multiple times, seen the Harbour Bridge, visited the Hunter Valley vineyard region, traveled to and hiked the Blue Mountains, as well as explored all around the University's campus.

Now that we're in Sydney, there has been much more emphasis on the classroom aspect of the course. While we were in Darwin and central Australia, other groups such as wildlife, tourism, and business have had class-specific experiences. We definitely saw real-life applications of what we have been learning like visiting a few photovoltaic (PV) systems, including one of the most prominent PV research facilities in the world in Alice Springs, however the groups are getting much more into their work now that we are in Sydney. Specifically, we all have group research projects that are due in two weeks before we leave Sydney. My project involves research into the recent improvements in photoelectrolysis versus relatively more mature PV/electrolysis systems for hydrogen production, including cost analyses of the two systems. I had very little idea of what that meant two weeks ago too, don't worry.

When we flew in, immediately we knew we were somewhere else entirely. Besides the Opera House which we saw from the plane, there was a noticeable temperature difference, and an entirely different demographic- especially around the university, or uni, specifically (the University is called the Uni, and the dorms are called college). The road that our college is on is basically a Chinatown, and the university population has a strong Asian presence. One of the students I talked to from Taiwan said that students have to try really hard to compete with the strong international presence. Most Asians at the university are in more of the technical subjects- engineering itself is around 80% Asian. It may be surprising, but when you put a huge Asian population close by an incredibly prestigious university with only 26 million Australians nearby, the numbers start to make sense.

One thing that you have to remember, though, is that the university is in the middle of its winter break, so there are not very many students around right now. The university is comparable in size to the University of Michigan, however at this time of the season there are not many students around. Resident hall advisers are still around, so we have had a chance to talk to them as well as a few of the students who have stayed for break. The social setup of the university seems somewhat different than the US. A lot of students seem to meet and get to know the people in their dorm/college very well, however they do not know as many of the students outside of their colleges. They stay in their colleges a little longer than Michigan students- a decent amount even end up staying in the college all four years. Right now, we are housed in New College, which has a population of about 200 students. The Australian students have been very nice, and have made a good effort to try to get to meet us in our time here.

I hope to have another post up soon, and maybe have some sort of interview with one of the program heads such as Nick Dowd or Tom Kuffer about what differences they see between Australian and American college students and in general. But until then, cheers!