The view from in here: Books

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Free Comic Book Day

A while ago I was asked to take part in a new campaign by Murdoch where I basically had to come up with a vow that I would spend the rest of my natural born life trying to fulfill. To some people this might seem a bit rash but to me it seems sensible. After all I am the sort of person who will vow to spend the rest of my life trying to destroy a restaurant that hasn’t given me great service. Perhaps I need help. But more on that later, for now I want to talk about the vow I made which was, “I vow to discover new ways to encourage literacy”

Literacy is a subject very important to me because I believe it forms the building blocks for any kind of learning and creativity. I learnt to read when I was very young and it opened up a whole new world to me, the first time I read The Hobbit I was utterly spellbound by the magic and possibilities it offered. Whenever we would go on long camping trips my parents would round my sister and I up and take us to the second hand bookstore where we would buy armfuls of what would essentially be our only entertainment, apart from the abundant vervet monkeys that would steal everything else. When you are stuck in a hot car for up to ten hours a day you genuinely start to appreciate the value of a good book.

When I went to school I made a rather startling discovery, my love of books and fantastic stories didn’t immediately make me the coolest kid in class. In fact, it had the opposite effect and for years I struggled with peer pressure that was telling me that reading wasn’t “cool” and that I would only be popular if I didn’t spend all day shut in the library reading. Despite all the pressure I have developed a real love for reading and so I am especially pleased when I see initiatives like Free Comic Book Day.

On FCBD, which is the first Saturday in May, you can walk into any participating comic book store and be guaranteed to walk out with at least one free comic that you don’t even have to steal. It’s a great way to connect with your local comic community, get some free comics and generally have a great day. It’s also a great time to get into comics because so many of the free comics are aimed at introducing people to the world of comic books and graphic novels. Importantly there are also usually a selection available for kids and can make all the difference in instilling them with a love of reading.

So this Saturday, the 7th of May, I will be down at Quality Comics picking up free comic books, taking photos of the exciting costumes and just genuinely enjoying life. If you have ever been curious about comics then Saturday is a really great day to see some of them at their finest for free.

posted under Books, Creativity, FCBD, Free Comic Book Day, Literacy, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Semester 1 2011 | 0 Comments

The Stress Less Guide to Studying in Australia - Part Three

Orientation Week

This one is coming a little later than I would have liked but I promise there will be a full explanation. Later. As always please leave a comment or email me if you have any questions or feel that I've missed something.

So now that you’re in Australia, you’ve moved into what will probably be your home for the next three years and have met other people who are about to start University. O-Week starts tomorrow (or maybe today at the rate I’m writing) and soon you’ll be so busy attending introductory lectures and orientation events that stressing about the semester to come will be the last thing on your mind. This will be the conclusive post of this trilogy so pay close attention.

Put your address on MyInfo

One of the conditions for holding a student visa in Australia is that you let your education provider, a fancy name for the University you attend, know where you live. This is also kind of useful for you as it means the University can send you important notices and the like. It’s really easy to simply go to MyInfo on the Murdoch portal and pop your address in. All you need to login in is your student number and password that you should already have.

Get your student I.D

It’s a handy little card that entitles you to the various discounts that students are offered. It also allows you to gain access to certain buildings in the University grounds after hours depending on your unit choices. All you need is your student number and the library will sort you out with a picture and a card. It does not, however, allow you to get concession on public transport, that requires a separate smart-rider card and to have registered for the concession on MyInfo.

Enroll in Units and Activities

Part of being at University is attending lectures and classes. To that end it’s a really good idea to enroll in the units that your major requires. The sooner you enroll in units the sooner you can enroll in activities (the classes that go with every unit) and the sooner you do that the better the timetable you end up with. It’s only logical.

Buy your books

This can be the most painful part of your University career, having to shell hundreds of dollars for University textbooks and readers. There really is very little I can say that will soften this blow. (Again email me or leave a comment if you have something to add) Check the Guild shop for second hand books and sites like the Book Depository and Amazon will sometimes have cheaper books. Good luck either way.

Conclusion

If you’ve read this far and feel that there is still something that is worrying you then I encourage you to send me an email about it. Otherwise, follow your timetable, always read your Unit Guide, always take notes in lectures and always start your assignments on time. Also, stress less.

Good luck!

posted under BA in Security Terrorism and Counterterrorism studies, Books, International Students, Jonathan Gurney, Lectures, Murdoch Blogger, Murdoch University, murdochuni | 1 Comments

University Myth busters part 3

It’s come to the stage of the year when Murdoch starts accepting the mid-year enrolments. A lot of students who take a break after high school find this to be the best time to get into student life. However it can still be a pretty intimidating time and you probably have a lot of worries and doubts. With that in mind Murdoch asked me to write three articles tackling the most common worries you guys face. If you have any questions about enrollment I advise you to check out Ask Murdoch.

“I haven’t studied in a while and I’m lacking confidence.”

I’m told that 60% of Murdoch students are over 19 when they enrol. Maybe this statement could apply to you? Maybe you took some time off between finishing school and enrolling to travel or earn some money. Perhaps University didn’t seem like your first choice when you wrote your last exams but now it seems like a pretty attractive option. But you’ve been away from studying for a while now and you’re not sure if you could write an assignment or research a paper. I was in the same place when I first started at Murdoch, although admittedly my exile from the books had only been for 8 months. Thankfully there were a few things that helped.

Foundation Units

When you enrol you are required to take a foundation unit in your first semester. These are usually aimed at teaching you to write critically about a myriad of different subjects. My foundation unit was FDN130 or “Age of Information” and was basically about how different communication technologies had influenced our development. It sounds pretty full-on but in reality these units are really there to make sure you develop the research and writing skills you need to succeed at Uni. Provided you go to your tutorials and you do the readings you shouldn’t have any major problems getting back into the swing of things.

Workshops

Throughout every semester there are always a lot of voluntary workshops run to help students deal with issues such as stress, essay writing and research tips. These workshops usually don’t last longer than an hour and they cover a wide range of topics. If you’re having trouble with something the chances are there is a workshop that can help. More importantly these can help refresh skills you’ve already learnt and that can give you a bit more confidence in your assignment writing.

Other Students

When all else fails it can be really useful to talk to the others doing your unit. These guys will probably be going through exactly the same stress with the material that you are and a problem shared is a problem halved. It’s easy to feel alone when everyone else is going on about how easy an assignment is going to be but most of that is just posturing. The person that boasts about how quickly they wrote 5000 words is either lying or just super smart. Talk to others and their support will see you through.

Student Learning Centre

I mentioned in the last post that Murdoch has an entire department to help people succeed. The Student Learning Centre has people on staff that will help you. It’s also a great place to find out about the workshops I mentioned and get one-to-one sessions to help you out. These are the kind of resources that you can really find useful when you reach the end of your tether but they are best used throughout the semester. A stitch in time saves nine and all that.

Overall

It’s really easy to feel like you’re an idiot the first time you sit in a lecture and that’s not a feeling that goes away quickly. The turning point comes however when you realise that everyone else feels like an idiot, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. So however long you’ve been away from study it’s very likely that there are at least 20 people in your class or on your course that are in the same boat. Studying is like riding a bicycle, to dust off that old chestnut, and though you might be a bit wobbly at first it will all come back to you.

posted under BA in Security Terrorism and Counterterrorism studies, Books, exams, Murdoch Blogger, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Public Relations, University Myth Busters | 0 Comments

A new year (of uni)

There seems to be a recurring theme for me of being completely unprepared whenever a new semester starts. One week I’ll spend waking up really late and playing video games in my underwear and then all of a sudden week one of University starts and I have to go back to wearing pants. That’s not to say that the date classes start isn’t made very obvious just that it always seems to take me by surprise no matter how many post-it notes and phone reminders I set myself.

Part of the problem is that there is always so much stuff that I need to buy and my brain deactivates in order to protect me from the realisation of just how much money I need to spend. The other part is that by the time semester starts I’ve really adapted to being on holiday and it takes me all semester to break out of the bad habits.

The point is that semester has started and I have been running around buying books, signing up for classes, showing up for classes and completely forgetting that I have a blog to update. This year promises to be quite interesting as I am focusing solely on my journalism minor so I get to take some pretty exciting sounding units such as Literary Journalism and Digital Photography. The down-side is that I know absolutely nothing about those units so I will have to work twice as hard to simply achieve my usual average.

Another feature of this year will hopefully be the appearance of some guest blog posts; I will try and get some other students to share their stories and their impressions of life in Perth and University. I’m hoping that some people will find this useful as they are probably getting a bit sick of reading my usual stuff.
Now I know this has been short but I am afraid I now have some reading to do before my lectures tomorrow.

posted under Books, Guest Bloggers, Minor in Journalism, Murdoch University, murdochuni, Semester 1 2010, Student Village | 0 Comments