The beginning of this week marked the start of a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore and study in the beautiful city of Sydney. Upon arriving, we were greeted with a welcome dinner as well as a tour of Sydney’s botanical gardens where we had a great view of the world famous Sydney Opera House.
The class structure is much different to make time for our future internship during the second half of the semester, so the first eight weeks have been broken up into groups of two accelerated classes, each four weeks long. This week, we began our Australian Life & Culture course and the Financial Decision Modeling course. Since these classes are accelerated, each class meeting is three and a half hour long, but the professors make the class periods interesting and engaging. Since speaking with my professors, I have also learned that it is custom in Australia for college students to have no classes on Friday, so these longer classes allow for more freedom to be immersed into the local culture and explore the area.
This weekend, we did a walking tour of the historical Rocks District of Sydney, where the city was founded and the continent first began to be colonized. On this tour, I learned about the relations between colonizers and Aboriginal people, locations and resources that played key roles in development of the city, and how the settlers governed the area made their living. Limestone was a key resource to constructing Sydney’s infrastructure and can be seen in some of the older buildings on the port that settlers originally arrived on in the image of the Rocks district below. Here there were also many good restaurants, bars, and local vendors mostly selling homemade goods that I enjoyed.
Another great experience that the group part took in was an excursion to an Australian wildlife sanctuary. Here I got to interact with kangaroos, wallabies, emus, and koalas. I observed and learned about a lot of other Australian animals as well that we couldn’t interact with. Along with information about ecosystems, habitats, and the wildlife, I also learned about the struggles of establishing and running a business like this under the Australian government. The owners spoke a lot about fighting for their rights to the land when the government wanted to take it and use it to mine for natural resources. This placed a large financial burned on them and made their mission to protect and preserve Australia’s natural beauty and educate the public about it far more difficult. Some of those involved in attempts to take their land were later found to be corrupt. Below is an image of some of the wildlife I was able to get up close with.
Public transport in Sydney is made easily accessible by GAV and allows for freedom to travel to the gorgeous beaches of Australia. During the week a group of friends and I traveled to Bondi Beach. The weather was great and the water was perfect. There was much to do near the beach even though it was far from downtown Sydney. This was probably the highlight of my experience so far and I look forward to visiting other beaches in the area.
So far, I have learned about and experienced a great deal of the Australian culture as well as valuable information from my major-specific course, and it has only been one week. I am eager to explore further and learn more about the history and what Australia has to offer.