Interviewing my Lecturer

Today I was pretty much in luck- I got to interview our lecturer Lucinda Strahan in a group activity! I would start off with a little background of Miss Lucinda and will be talking a little bit about the differences in the lecturing styles in Malaysia and Australia. This is for all those people who are guessing the age of our Professional Writing lecturer- she is 32 ! If I had guessed, it'd probably be 25, really. She has been teaching for about a year in RMIT, mostly doing part time tutoring in Melbourne University for the past seven years. She started off doing freelance writing for Art and Culture but decided to do some part time lecturing after finding out that she needs more interaction with people. She chose RMIT for her first full-time lecturing because in RMIT, the work was more hands on as compared to Melbourne University where they are more focused on the theory part.

I find that the lecturers over here in Australia, namely RMIT because I am studying there, are more personal when it comes to educating their students. So far, my classes in every tutorial has been really personal and I feel that there is enough interaction between lecturer and student as compared to when I was in Malaysia. Back home, things were a little different because the lecturers were more focused on teaching a big group rather than personally getting in touch with a student. There are still lecturers in Malaysia that actually do more and actually get out of their way to help students. They are a rare group of lecturers but they do exist and always helped me with my studying. As for Lucinda, getting personal and interacting with students has always been something she yearns for. She will be there when students face really personal problems such as a death of a family member, break ups, arguments with their other halves and many other problems.

When I asked her if there is any students who actually gave her a hard time, she said that she never felt that the problems that the students face were never an annoyance to her. She even stays back in RMIT during semester breaks to deal with problems students face and enrolement issues. Having Lucinda as my lecturer cum tutor will ease my stay in a foreign country and keeping up with my studies should not be a problem at all.

My first attempt

There have been quite a few changes in everyday life since I’ve arrived in Melbourne last Sunday. Things are quite messy in my first week. Running around trying to get an apartment and the weather isn’t really helping at all. Finding an apartment was easy but actually getting it despite all the competition is pretty tough. Coming from a hot and humid country, Malaysia, I have yet to get used to the transition of a country that only has ‘summer’ into a new environment, which is as cold as a few degrees. I was here in Melbourne last summer and the weather was nowhere near as cold as the weather now in winter. Bathing is a problem, I assure you it is. All those problems aside I have been having quite a bit of fun over here in Melbourne. The booze here is really good and I can find them everywhere. Although there isn’t much nightlife here and shops close quite early as compared to Malaysia there are a few places that I can hang out when I am bored at night. There is one thing though that really bothers me. I don’t get to drive here! Back in Malaysia, everyone owns a car, be it big or small. Although the public transport here is really good, I’d still prefer to drive around the city. I’d have to pester my parents to get a car or I will have to walk around quite a bit. Having said that, the extortionate prices of the parking over here probably would mean that even if I had owned a car I wouldn’t be driving it as often as I thought I’d be. There are plenty of restaurants around the city but it really is better if I’d actually cook for a bit. Instead of eating out almost everyday, I’d have to learn how to cook if I want to stop relying on my sister’s awesome cooking.