Well, I’m back in Melbourne to start my second year of Professional Software Development @ Swinburne. My first lecture is Data Communications and Security on Monday at 8.30am, which is quite a bastard considering it’s a 2-hour lecture, and it’s the only class for the day. As well as this, I can’t move this lecture to any other day or time, or move any of my other classes to Monday. Here’s a diagram which visually describes this interesting timetabling phenomenon:

The other classes I have are Data Structures and Patterns, which sounds like it will be very interesting (C++ and memory management and data structures, sounds geektastic), Software Development Practices which sounds a bit waffley but quite important, and Database Management Systems, which as far as I know is stored procedures in SQL and things like that. I’m also doing the compulsory Careers in the Curriculum unit, which by the sound of it is a glorified TAFE course on resume writing. Meh, best to get it over and done with than having it hanging over me when I go to graduate.

I’ve spent the last week or so settling back into Melbourne. This year I’m back at the Swinburne Residences. The first question I’m asked when I tell people this is “why didn’t you go into the apartments?” … well, I dunno really. The Res was pretty good last year. The apartments didn’t really phase me. UniLodge is amazingly expensive. Meh.

The Res hasn’t changed a whole lot since last year. Well, there’s new RAs, both of the TV rooms now have DVD players (one of them still had a VHS player … in 2008 … c’mon), and there’s now a lot more fines for things like forgetting your keys and removing the flyscreen from the window (which is a $100 fine .. what?!). Also, the cost of it has gone up $15/month. Apart from that, it’s about the same. There’s still an amazing sense that it isn’t good value for money, especially in comparison to residences at other universities. In fact, I think we have the most expensive residences out of nearly every university in Melbourne, given we don’t get a meal service or anything*, however I probably should go and do a bit of research before I say that. I’m just going by informal discussions with other friends who are at other universities.

This week I haven’t done much, apart from vegetate reclimatise to the wonderful world of Melbourne. It’s been a pretty lazy week. I did join the SwinDrinkClub though, so that should be good. The first event is next Thursday: The staff bar on level 3 of the UN building is reopening for SwinDrinkClub members, which is a great thing. Not that there’s any immediate shortage of watering holes around the Hawthorn area, but it’s nice to have one on campus.

Another good thing that happened this week was The Ama-swin Race, the orientation scavenger hunt exclusive to PSD students. While I missed the race, I caught up with everyone at the finish line, which this year was The Hawthorn. It was an enjoyable night.

Anyway, hopefully this second year of university is as good as the first, or even better!

–Ben

* – with regards to meal service, we get a “continental” breakfast which consists of toast, cereal, fruit, and terrible orange-flavoured juice (not orange juice, there’s an important distinction. Maybe this is just a by-product of growing up in a citrus-growing area where we had real orange juice all the time, I dunno.).

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 11:30 pm and is filed under School. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.