Where am I studying: my university

Since February, I am attending classes at Australian Catholic University (ACU). It is a public university.

ACU has 7 campuses in Australia: two in Sydney (North Sydney and Strathfield), one in Adelaide, Ballarat, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne.

ACU « empowers students to think critically, ethically and to bring about change in their communities and professions ».

History

ACU was born in the late 80s, by the merger of 4 Colleges of Advanced Education: the College of Education in Sydney, the Institute of Catholic Education in Victoria, the Queensland McAuley College and the College of Signadou Education in the Australian Capital Territory. The government wanted to deal with one contact and thus a single university. By merging, these colleges formed the Australian Catholic University, the only public Catholic university of the country. ACU opened on 1^st January, 1991.
The mission of the university is to teach a "spiritual" education. There is a strong part of social justice in the programs.
The university promotes international openness and mobility.

ACU has 4 faculties: Education and arts, Health sciences, Law and business, Philosophy and theology.

My campus

I am studying at North Sydney Campus. The campus is a 10 minute train ride away from the city centre. You can view it on the map:

There are more than 3,000 students on my campus, and almost a third of them are international students.

Here are some pictures of my campus:

Class content

I am attending 4 courses at university, each of them being divided into two hours of lecture and one hour of tutorial every week.

My 4 courses are: Employment law, HR management, HR development and Staffing and talent management.

I have chosen HR courses because I'm interested in HR, but the courses I've had in France have not allowed me to get a thorough opinion about this sector.

The courses I have selected allow me to learn about HR principles and to study the changes that have occurred in the past few years.

The lectures are a 2 hour course similar to amphitheater courses in France. The tutorials are one hour long and they are based on a more participatory mode.

For each course, I have two assessments during the semester and a final exam at the end (in June).

Every week, we have some texts to read in order to prepare the next course.

In terms of cultural differences in the classroom, students are allowed to arrive late for class. Teachers don’t say anything. Students can also leave the classroom whenever they want, without informing the teacher.

So, as you can see, the Australian system is quite different from the French one. At first, it was surprising.

Student interaction

Student interactions are very developed and the community engagement is valued.

There are plenty of students clubs and events on the campus. For example, there is an international students club, named Maksa. On my campus, there are also 7 sporting clubs: football, frisbee, cricket, rugby, hockey…

This is a good way to get to know other students.

I joined the International Students' Club of my university which allowed me to meet many international students.