Melbourne Uni and My MSW

Yesterday was my last day of classes for the year, again, being the end of our MSW 8-week Semester. Just as we get into the routine of it all, which has been a full day on Tuesdays for me, it's all over! A couple of essays still to finish, but somehow we have covered all we have needed to in weeks that have seemed to fly by again.

My morning lectures have been in a lecture theater in the Medicine Building - somewhere where, back in high school, I dreamed of attending classes! Well, I guess with this subject, and also one last Semester, I have ticked that off. Albeit not to study medicine, but Social Work. And in a room just next to the anatomy museum, which had fascinated me on all those Open Days we went to for uni application ideas.

Being back on the main campus of the University of Melbourne in Parkville is bringing so many memories back of my first year, here, back in 1996! Last year for the MSW we attended classes mainly in rooms within buildings streets off the main campus - Social Work being so valued, that it's tucked away! But we have been with the big schools this year, and walking through the beautiful Old Arts Building, and seeing signs for Redmond Berry, Alice Hoy, Raymond Barry buildings, and walking between the taller, imposing ugly brick ones, takes me back!

I love being on campus, as opposed to the previous Masters I did off campus, because I feel connected to the course, the classes and lecturers, and my peers. It means that I get to walk through areas where you see 'I Shot The Deputy' on someone's t-shirt, where you hear horror political rubbish like 'budgie smugglers, not people smugglers!' outside the Baillieu Library, and hear someone end an argument with them screaming that someone else is a fascist. Ha!

I even had lunch in the Union Building last week, reminding me of those busy times Jenny and I would meet for lunch, and then go off to a Sociology class together - before rushing off for a night out, most likely!

15 years ago I did subjects like Biology and Statistics, and the "oh-so-useful" History and Philosophy of Science, as part of a Bachelor of Science degree...err, of the start of it, anyway. But the real story is that this was not the goal I had set for myself, and I also lived on campus at Medley Hall - thus the complete loss of focus on the study aspects!

I also did Chemistry, which was actually my downfall of that year, failing by 3 points, and thus making me look for a different direction. Not going to many classes helped with this disaster - but now I wonder what on earth would have happened if I'd passed, and completed that degree, and ended up with a useless BSci...

My afternoon class this semester has been taught in an old chemistry lecture theater, with it's hard, uncomfortable seats, steep incline, impersonal feel, and the scary Periodic Table looking down at us for the whole hour. I mean, I used to know what that all meant! We also pass the poor freshers in their white lab coats going into their three hours labs....stuff of nightmares, they were!

Luckily, we have been able to retreat to the Arts Centre building after this experience, to flesh out all things ethics, rights, mental health, employee health, organisational theory, and social work. Much more my world right now.