In my 20 years, I have never traveled so far. However, I am happy to say that the tumultuous journey was worth the incredible destination. Upon arriving in Australia I felt my legs could give out, I was exhausted but also immensely excited, impatiently awaiting my first opportunity to explore. Despite my overwhelming excitement, after the long journey of 30 some odd hours, I wasn’t feeling well enough to make it to the orientation dinner. Luckily I was able to sleep very soundly that first night and woke up refreshed and enthusiastic for a great first day of class. With nearly 2 weeks under our belt here, I find myself still adjusting to the distance between me and my loved ones as well as the time change. In addition, immersing yourself in a new society and their culture takes adjusting. Im pleased to say I have found the people to be very friendly, although I have not met a lot of locals yet, I continue to put myself out there and introduce myself to as many students in the program and as many people I interact with outside of class. Of course with the hope of sparking friendships.
I really enjoyed meeting my Professors on the first day of class, our Australian Life and Culture Professor focuses on Sociology and Women and Gender Studies. I find her to be very engaging and our class time is not only spent going through PowerPoint slides, but also watching videos and movies, doing group exercises and discussing material as a class. This past week I noticed some students in the class were uncomfortable during a poll we did in which we had to identify which social class we think we belong to. We were asked to share this with the class when called on. There was a decent range of socioeconomic groups, but the majority of students were middle upper class and middle class. I found this exercise to be really interesting because it pushed students outside of their comfort zone and broke down some of the social norms and expectations in which people don’t talk openly about which social class they identify with. Our Professor, Peta Hinton, has already begun to make a lasting impact on the ways in which I view identity and culture. Our class on Friday was unfortunately canceled but I am looking forward to the next two weeks and hope to take even more away from the course before it ends.
