1st Week of Class = Done

So I've just begun my second week of classes at Otago, and I'm still getting used to some of the differences. The classes I'm taking are Maori Society, Human Geography (both are intro level) and Metamorphism, which is an intermediate course.

Among the differences:

• You only take 3 classes per semester - and university is only 3 years here! In fact, I've heard one kiwi girl comment about how she's jealous of the American system, with its breadth of study requirements, because you're forced to focus almost immediately upon getting to university here.
• A class is actually called a paper, and a course is known here as your major.
• Classes don't meet as often - only one of my classes has 3 hours of lecture per week (which is the norm in the States).
• My two intro-level classes have 200+ students each in lecture, so to get more 'small-class interaction,' they each have tutorials, which are 15 or fewer students from the class who usually meet once a week with a tutorial leader (a grad student) to go over class material.
• Grading is COMPLETELY different. Final exams make up from 50% to 70% of your grade. Holy crap. I feel lucky that I have two that are only 50%, with essays and tutorial participation making up the rest of the grade.
• Kiwis are apparently really anal about citing your sources and how you make your bibliography - every department has its own style guide for how you have to cite material in papers, and you get heavily penalized if you don't follow it.

That said, I say that in a few weeks I'll be into the swing of things - although it remains to be seen how I'll do when I have to write essays again; I haven't really had to write an expository essay since freshman year. Yipes. The classes themselves are pretty good. Geography's a lot like a mix of sociology and economics, and right now we're learning about development in Southeast Asia, just to give you an idea of what we've been learning so far. Maori Society is interesting so far (we're learning about creation) and finally, my metamorphism class looks like it will be a lot like the petrology course I took last semester - and it uses the same book! Glad I lugged that stupid thing over with me, since it actually paid off.

Anyway, the weekend was pretty good. It started off with an all-day Harry Potter movie marathon - we watched all four movies on DVD. On Saturday, me and some other Butler kids went for a hike up Mt. Cargill, which is the tallest hill near Dunedin. For some reason we thought it would be a good idea to walk all the way there and (pretty much) all the way back, which ended up being around 12 km (7.5 miles for you Yankees). It was a fun walk though, except for the part where it was raining on the trail and the top was shrouded in cloud. Obviously the pictures weren't too spectacular... That night was the All Blacks rugby game, against the South Africa Springboks. We got to The Cook with the game tied 6-all, then the All Blacks proceeded to beat up the bloody Springboks, winning 33-6. Then on Sunday we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. What could be better?