A week in the life of a university student

On Tuesday I had uni. Starting at 9.00am, I have my Educational Psych lecture which goes for an hour and a half, followed straight on by my Primary PD/H/PE lecture (luckily it's in the same lecture theatre, so we don't have to move. But it is annoying to have to sit in the same chair for 3 straight hours.)

I have an hour break for lunch from 12.00 - 1.00, then it's my Classrooms Without Borders tutorial for two hours, straight into a lecture for Education, Knowledge, Society & Change, and then a mad dash down to the sports hall for an hour each of PD/H/PE prac and theory, finishing at 6.00pm.

Then I hop into my little red car, usually wait 10 minutes to be able to actually get out of the uni car park, only to get stuck in traffic as soon as I pull out onto the main road. Then sit in more traffic at the lights. Then sit in more traffic on the freeway. Rinse and repeat.

On Thursday I also had uni. My first class was a tutorial for E,K,S&C that started at 10.30am. I left home at 9.20, stopped to get petrol (it seems I have to do this every 2 days now I'm travelling so much!) and then got to uni 10 minutes early, which was good because I had no idea where the classroom was. I got to the building, and started looking for signs or directions to classroom 23.G.20 (Building 23, on the Ground floor, classroom 20).

I couldn't find it anywhere. I walked from one end of the building to the other. Three times.

There were signs to direct you to classrooms 1 - 18, and then for classrooms 25 - 35. But nothing in between.

By now it was 10.30 on the dot. I end up walking to the enquiries desk and asking the lady there where the classroom is, and she is very nice and gives me directions.

Turns out to get to this particular classroom, you have to walk out of the building and the entrance to this one room is around the side.

Logical.

So I keep walking, following the path until I find a classroom full of people. The sign on the door says "EC 1" (many of the buildings used to be labelled this way, so now there are two ways of naming the rooms, just to make it more confusing).

I walk in, trying to be quiet and find a seat. The tutor comes over to me and welcomes me to the class. She was really nice.



And then she starts explaining the experiments we'll be working on.

Huh? I didn't know the School of Education ran scientific experiments in their classes. I didn't even think it was in the curriculum.

So I ask her what class this is.


Brain and Behaviour.


Neuroscience.


Yeah. I walked into the smart brainiacs (literally) classroom and then looked like an idiot when I had to walk straight out again.


Back to the lady at the enquiries desk.

I tell her I couldn't find it. By now I'm so late for my class that I'm stressed. She gives me pretty much the same directions, but I thank her anyway because she was nice.

Even if she laughed at my inability to find said classroom.


I walk back around the building, trying to find a different route because I don't want the Brain and Behaviour class to see me wander past again.

Because nothing says "I'm a student new to this campus and I have no idea where I'm going" like a person wandering aimlessly around looking for signs on classroom doors.

I stealthily avoid being seen by the B&B class, and figure I may as well just keep walking until I come face to face with a gate or a fence or some sort of boundary.

Eventually, I'm walking across a lawn and then I see it.

EC 2

a.k.a 23.G.20.


I walk in, again trying to be quiet and I'm successful until I sink gratefully in to the nearest chair.

And wouldn't you know it, it's a kiddie chair and I sort of fall into it and make a noise because the drop was longer than I expected.


Nevermind. I'm practically sitting at shoulder height to the table, but all that matters is I made it.

All is good until about halfway through the class when I look at the girl next to me who is eagerly filling out a peer evaluation sheet for the group presentation we have just heard.

At the very top there is a space where you fill out your name, group and the tutorial time.


She has written, very prominently I might add, "10:00 - 12:30".

Umm... really?

I swear it started at 10.30.

But then I remember one of my friends saying this class did go for two and a half hours.

So 10.00 would make sense.

I spend the rest of the class trying to figure out if the class really does go for two and a half hours, and if that means instead of being 10 or 15 minutes late, I was actually 40 or 45 minutes late.


The peer presentation evaluation sheet didn't lie.


The class totally started at 10am.


I was 45 minutes late.


*smacks hand into forehead*


The funny (or not so funny, depending on which way you look at it) thing is, this isn't the first time this is happened to me.

The week of orientation, I arrived 5 minutes late to a session and found my friend sitting in the stairwell of the lecture theatre. We both commented on how early people must have gotten there, since there were no seats left ans she had gotten there 5 minutes early, and I only 5 minutes late.

Towards the end of the session, one of our lecturers goes on a big rant about how rude it is to arrive so late, etc etc.

My friend and I are walking out, going "What was she talking about? No one arrived half an hour late! Most people were early!"

And then a guy from our class starts laughing and tells us the session started at 9.00am, not 9.30. Because he is laughing so hard, we assume he's joking and we're all "As if! It did not!"

And then he says "Well, check your piece of paper if you don't believe me."


We do.


It started at 9.00.

I was 35 minutes late.


Oops.

My friend and I are still laughing at that one.


Wait until I tell her about my solo effort.