Sydney Life

When I got to Uni, I got scared of everything and everyone in class as I didn’t know what the protocol was with talking to lecturers and tutors and the like. Well, I'll give you the 4-1-1!

Hey yo’all, Yee hah, happy Country Music Festival to you all! I’m not actually there, would love to have gone, but I did get my dose of Music Festivals yesterday at the Big Day Out. I’m thinking next year of buying 10 tickets just to get rid of some of the people so I can get closer to the stages, and not be so squashed. If you want to leave a comment, tell me who went off!!!!! Despite being squashed and soaked by over zealous security guards on several occasions with their hoses at the front of the stage, I heard some great music. I really enjoyed the Kings of Leon (they’re always tops), I love Gerling so they were great as normal (I nearly missed them, the queue to get in at 1 was sooooooooooooooo long!), the Mars Volta was tops as usual, but I must say that the one band who just knocked my socks off was the Go! Team. They were wonderful, so much energy, great music too. Yeah, was tops! White Stripes get a honourable mention, they are wonderful, but I was sitting in the stand and the sound was crap, but I’m sure it sounded good down the bottom. Iggy was good too, I could go on, but Ill stop now…

Well, onto more important things, such as the topic that I set out to explore in the title. When I turned up to Uni I really wasn’t sure how to interact with my lecturers. I knew that you talked to your tutors and I was cool with that, but I wasn’t sure what the relationship should be like at Uni. At school I had sung songs about my teachers while they accompanied me with some beats, laughed about the misfortune of sporting teams after class, we even swapped one teachers glasses one day, put them on and had a laugh (Jake H was one of the best teachers I ever had, just a top bloke). Walking into early lecturer I thought this would never be the case at Uni, but as I’ve since found out, you can sing songs with lecturers, talk of sport and steal glasses, but you have to develop the relationship!!

There are a couple of ways to talk to your lecturers. The first and easiest way is simple to go up to them after class. Yeah I got a bit intimidated in lecture halls of 400 walking up to them, but really, they’re there to help you, so why not talk to them?

Yeah okay, you might not want to do this now in first year, so here are the other two ways that I have learned to use. Firstly, the good old email. On your course outline guide you will find their email accounts, so fire off emails left right and centre if you have questions. I think it’s a great way to go if you are scared to talk to them in person, and you can always hit reply till you get the answer that you want, so why not give that a go?

The other channel that I have employed is visiting them during their consultation hours. Each academic staff member has certain times during the week when they throw open their doors for you to come and visit and talk, and this is generally the quietest time of the week for them. So why not buy a packet of Snakes and head on down to talk with them. Really they’re not scary people (Even the King Dirk Moses, he is good fun, make sure you’re prepared to answer questions when you visit him, I always turned the conversation to Rugby if I wasn’t sure of an answer!), so why not use the channels that are open to you.

Naturally it is a lot easier to develop positive working relationships with your tutors, but there is no harm at all in asking questions of those important types who stand up the front and give the lectures (lots of lecturers are the course conveners for the course, and some take tutes too, so you can be lucky and have them all in one!).

Well that’s it in a nutshell. I think I’ve decided to go to side shows next year, I should have gone to see the White Stripes and the Kings side shows, but then I would have missed out on the Go! Team. Not to worry, was good to see some friends, and I must say, there were some beautiful people about too, wasn’t too bad.

Hit the comment thing ey? Yeah tops!

Toodles,

Bren