My courses in Week 1

My study abroad semester here in Australia is not just about summer, sun, beach, and (S)sea, but also about studying.

To fulfill the guidelines essential for the recognition of my study abroad semester at my university, I had to take a total of four courses. I was able to choose both related and interdisciplinary courses. Therefore, I decided on the following courses:
- 1009IBA Communicating Across Asia
- 1032LHS Japanese A1
- 2036MKT Retail Marketing
- 2219HSL Event Management Principles

In contrast to HS Koblenz, the courses here always consist of a lecture and a workshop, with the workshop usually being in smaller groups and more practical.

Another significant difference is that books are required for the courses. The professors and lecturers refer to various contents in their lectures and support their slides with the corresponding pages in the book. Of course, this does not apply to my Japanese course ;) Here we work directly with the textbook and receive homework in the workbook. It's also not cheap. Fortunately, two of my courses offer the textbooks as eBooks, so I only had to organize the books for Event Management Principles and Japanese. I bought the former used for around $90 and had to buy the latter new for a total of $106. Quite a lot for just one trimester...

Enough about the costs! The main and important part is that the courses are interesting :) The professors and lecturers make them more open and try to involve the students. For example, the lecturer for Retail Marketing asked many questions that you just had to answer. This makes you more attentive and engaged in the lecture's content. Other students have also confirmed this.

I have a break between my lectures on Monday and Tuesday. I can use that time for a small lunch break. So this week I even prepared extra food and brought it with me. The cool thing is that there are microwaves here to heat up your packed lunch! That's something I've been wishing for at HS Koblenz for 2 years :) It's just so practical and much cheaper. There's no cafeteria here where students have the opportunity to eat cheaply. Instead, there are small restaurants (BurgerUrge, Guzman y Gomez, Providore, Cafe Rossa, and a few Asian restaurants) where you can get something to eat and drink. In general, campus life here is very different from Germany. The Griffith University Gold Coast Campus not only offers restaurants, ATMs, and university shops, but also has an STA Travel office, a post office, BBQ areas, tennis and basketball courts, a pool (which you already know from Oweek), a fitness center, and probably more that I haven't discovered yet. As a student, you have so many opportunities here, I'm really impressed by the student life here :)

On Thursday, there was a Meet & Greet with the internationals here, organized by the Griffith Mates. We played a few icebreaker games and met many new faces again. Many of the people I met on Thursday, I met again on Saturday. But more on that later ;) Towards the end of the event, there was, of course, something to eat. But this time, not a sausage BBQ, but finger food. Also very tasty! In the end, we took some photos and filmed a Mannequin Challenge video.

During the week, I already got a ticket for Aussie Surf'n'Sizzle. This included a full day of surfing, beach volleyball, kayaking, snorkeling, and stand-up paddling (SUP) on Saturday. We took the bus from the university to The Spit, Main Beach. There we received our towels included in the day and were divided into four teams. I met some people again from Thursday and was in Team Red with them. (You can find the exact timetable in the photos.) There was another sausage BBQ for lunch, soon you can't see it anymore :D Once I find it on Facebook, I will upload the group photo here! The day was very adventurous and a lot of fun. Especially SUP, which I tried for the first time. I even managed to do a 180° jump on the board without falling into the water. After all the activities (from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm), I fell into bed quite tired with a sunburned face.

...and I was greeted today on Sunday with sore muscles ;) Today was also a successful day! Well, at least in the morning. Together with Delia and Selina, I signed up for Clean Up Australia. As you can probably guess, it was about picking up trash in the park. We went to MacIntosh Island Park, received t-shirts, trash bags, and gloves, and got to work diligently. When I compare the park and the surroundings to Germany, this place is very clean and tidy. There's a little litter here and there, but I believe Germany could learn from it! Even in other parks where there are public BBQs, it's very clean. I don't think such equipment would last a few years in Germany. Nevertheless, we found a lot of trash. I would estimate that there were about 20-30 of us, each in small groups. Fortunately, we had a separate trash bag for recyclables, which means that glass, metal, plastic, and paper go in one bag. We collected very little in the park, just small things, but it was worse near the beach. There were many cans and (glass) bottles. Occasionally, we were praised by passersby for our voluntary work and thanked. A nice bunch of Australians :)

After almost 3 hours of cleaning up, we collected a few trash bags. Some even found a rusty fishing net. Crazy what you can find!

By the way, you can find my timetable in the photos ;) The graphic is a bit unfortunate, I have enough time between classes to get from room A to room B.