Sending you a Postcard: Living and getting started at UWA campus

Hi all,

UWA campus is looking great and there has been lot of stuff to do. Orientation week is going on at the moment and it has kept me quite busy.

During o-week I have met so many new people, locals and other exchangers from all around the world. Both UWA and our college (the place I'm living in) is organizing tours and other happenings to get to know the city, campus and other people better. The campus itself is very beautiful with its parks and old-fashioned buildings located by the Swan River right next to Kings Park. It is tho' located further away from the city center than I expected: it's about 10 minutes' bus trip to the center of Perth and 20 minutes to the Cottesloe Beach. In addition the business school happens to be right at the very other end of the campus so from the main entrance and colleges it's about 10-15 minutes' walk there. Nevertheless, so far I haven't mind the "distance".

Getting started with the studies during orientation week, it's mainly about the enrolments. I enrolled into the units (meaning courses) one month in advance, but ended up changing few of them so I've spent few days studying UWA Handbook for suitable units and running back and forth between Study Abroad Office (to get the form to change units) and the business school (to get the changed units accepted and signed before returning the form to the Study Abroad Office). At the moment I have "Enterprise Systems" and "International Finance" (no laughing.), "Global Economy" and one easier unit called "Consumer Behaviour". I've also tried to organize my timetable in CAS (Class Allocation System) in order to have long long weekends for travelling :) At the moment I have school only from Monday to Wednesday, whippee!

Winthrop Hall

Walking around the campus

Business school is the newest building on campus, very neat from the inside too!

Regarding accommodation I chose to live at the campus in one of the colleges. Unfortunately it's pretty much the most expensive way to live here but it's also the easiest. Other option would be renting a room from a shared house which usually costs around 150-200AUD per week (and they're gonna be fancier and newer than UniHall), you can find one for example from gumtree.com.au or flatmates.com.au.

I struggled between the options for a long time but at the end applied for the colleges during fall, before leaving for exchange. Hard to say yet whether I did the right decision or not :D

There are five colleges out of which I'm living in UniHall. I have my own room here (not exactly a five-star-hotel room), and I'm sharing a kitchenette and a bathroom with five other girls in my corridor. The rent includes a meal plan (14 meals per week, can be used as you wish between breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week), and all the colleges are located perfectly just next to the campus and bus stops. We have an access to the campus gym, and in UniHall area there are neat yards, common areas, free wifi (that doesn't work in the dorms very well tho'...), happenings such as Café Crawl organized by ResLife etc. Best thing is that I've met so many people here that I wouldn't have got to know otherwise. However, the rent is ridiculously high, 410AUD/week so over 1000€ per month, making it the most expensive way to live in Perth. And as said, the dorms aren't too fancy, and the food is quite heavy, would prefer not to pay for it and cook my own stuff and eat oudoors every now and then. However, you'd meet so many people in the dining hall, it's a good place for a chat.

UniHall (The new building. Dorms aren't in this one.)

All in all first days in Perth have been great. We went to the Cottesloe Beach with few exchangers and it was just beautiful, the water was incredibly clear and blue (better than Bondi or Manly!). Then we spent few nights with UniHall residents hanging out in the common areas, going out to Matilda Bay, gossiping in the dining hall and planning our upcoming trips. I also met my local friend for the first time in years who took me around the coastline to beautiful beaches and harbours :) I got a feeling it's gonna be good four months!