Day 22 (LaTrobe University) - Bendigo, Victoria Australia

Today was the first day of classes…but my only class of the day was cancelled, sweet! It's technically not cancelled, just rescheduled for tomorrow. I felt weird not having class when everyone else seems to. The schedule (they call it a timetable) system they have setup here at LaTrobe needs some work. I had to assist some of my first year flatmates try to understand and read where their classes were. LaTrobe uses LMS, which is owned and operated by Blackboard, so it's basically a different version of the Blackboard system Central uses. I could navigate through it some because it used the same principles as Blackboard. To add to the confusion students here don't have gen eds or university program (UPs) classes that have to be fulfilled. A student basically says they want to do a course, and then they are handed a timetable with their lectures on it. Depending on how big the program is you could be placed into a specific subgroup with different tutorials (labs) or workshops from your giant lectures.But trying to access a student's timetable and being able to READ it is disastrous. I guess during O-Week there were sessions available for students to attend where they explained some of this, but advertising and informing students of these sessions was a giant failure. Yes, part of the blame falls on those who went out every night to get trashed, but I was looking for opportunities to learn how to use the systems here and I had difficulty.Strangely they didn't cover these topics at International Orientation - how/what your username/password is, or how to use any of the universities online resources - something that I would think would be a necessity. I do believe Uni students should be treated as adults and make them responsible for their actions, but this is too extreme. I feel as though it's like some are being thrown a mile into the ocean and told to get back to land - it's a little harsh. There needs to be a softer transition. You cannot rely on sending emails to explain things because no one knows how to access their email account from the Uni, or what or how to access their username and password. Every department does their timetables differently, rightly so, but I feel as though there could be some kind of common ground or way to instruct students on how to find and read their timetables, and how to access LMS, Uni email, and so on. Now that I think about it, I never received a survey evaluating International Orientation or any other intro session. I'm so used to getting an email with a survey link from any and everything I participate in at Central I just start expecting and planning for them. There's really not an easy way to provide feedback to the Uni explaining problems and presenting possible solutions. I guess it will all work out in the end.