Hi all,
I have now officially finished my first week of school here at San Jose State. First impressions? Actually that’s a hard one, the campus is pretty huge I read somewhere that there is something like 29,000 students here. That number doesn’t surprise me at all, when you see everyone around campus. The main theme throughout campus is the Tower. One of the oldest buildings on campus is Tower hall. Our student cards are called Tower cards, and are our ticket to everything including free travel on the light rail and busses in the “Valley” area and our meal pass to D.C. (Dining commons). We even have money on our cards to spend at the food places on campus including Subway, Starbucks, Village market (like a small convenience store) and many more.
Classes are OK, but I’ve only had one week thus far, which was mainly going through the “green sheet” (course outline) and syllabus and a bit of work. The professors are pretty good and seem really excited to have me here. I introduced myself to one of my professors, Dr. Pendleton, half way through class during the 10 minute break, I got as far as “Hi, I just wanted to introduce myself my name is Michelle and I’m an Ex…..” it was at this point that she realized that I was “the exchange student from Australia”. She told me that she was going to have words to me about missing class yesterday (a class that I am not doing but the rest of the people in that class are doing) now realizing that I am not doing that class. When the rest of the class came back Dr. Pendleton told the class off (in a matter of speaking) because there was a student in the class that nobody recognized, but nobody said anything, then pointing at me she introduced me to everyone. For those who are not up-to-date with editors of books, Dr. Pendleton is the co-editor of Pedretti’s 6th ed.
I had another class this morning with Professor Smith and I got to say a few words of introduction to all the students. Professor Smith was saying we’ve got a new person in the class that I’m assuming none of you know, but I’ll let her introduce herself. Professor Smith said she’d like me to do a talk about our program at UWS and the differences between the programs etc, oh and about fieldwork differences too. So if I start asking people random questions about UWS that I already know, I might just be gathering another perspective.
“The City of San Jose is [supposedly] one of the safest large cities in the USA”, we heard this on one of our first days…. Then the Bank of America was robbed! So what we now hear is its one of the safest cities, but it is still a city. There is a police station on Campus and all around campus is blue poles which have emergency contact with the police. I don’t know whether they make me feel safer or not?!?
I am staying here at the I-house (International house) which is great. We’ve been off the San Francisco the other weekend (more than 40 of us using public transport) and we discovered some new places on our minor detours (getting slightly lost, but always in the right direction!). It’s a great community here, everyone looks out for each other and tries to involve everyone in everything.
The weather here is really warm, it has been in the low 30’s every day and there is no air conditioning in the house, so we either head to the pools or stay in the basement when we are not attending class. I no longer have problems with the money, its weird when money starts making sense, especially American money! The only thing that strikes me as hugely different is talking to the professors. Titles are very important here. There are few people who are on first name basis with students, for the rest it is professor or Dr. and you have to remember who has what title! I much prefer our system! Luckily I haven’t really stuffed up yet…
Anyways that’s Kind of a breakdown of my trip so far… who knows when the next one will be…
-Michelle
