My first class days

ACU's North Sydney Campus

Today, Thursday, 24 February and yesterday, on Wednesday, I had got my two first class days, which are also my first class week. Here there is the sequence of my week :

Wednesday:

10am-12am: Lecture of "Financial Institutions and Markets" (BAFN205) by Mr. Brett White

This lesson was interesting. The teacher showed us the journals and references we can use for our researches. Then, we had spoken about the financial markets, their evolution, their instruments, institutions and functions of a financial system. He also had defined the financial terms and the lesson had then spoken about the assets, notably financial ones and had introduced some financial topics.

We can take contact with the teacher for any question on Twitter.

1pm-2pm: Tutorial of "Principles of Finance" (BAFN200) by Mr. Mark Hopkins

This lesson was boring because the teacher had just reminded us some basis of Excel. That's why, I think this tool will be useful on this subject.

The teacher looks like nice.

2pm-3pm: Tutorial of "International Marketing" (MKTG301) by Mr. Gerard Lanzarone

The teacher is interesting and had made this lesson interesting. It was very interactive. We had answered together to some questions, almost geopolitical ones such as: "Why international business is much more complex today than it was 20 years ago ?"

3pm-4pm: Tutorial of "Financial Institutions and Markets" by Mr. Brett White

Not really interesting, a little boring. I had prefered the lecture. We could ask any questions about this one and we had spoken about financial newspapers. We have to pick a stock and follow it during the week to speak about its evolution on the next tutorial.

4pm-6pm: Lecture of "International Marketing" by Mrs. Beatrice Jetto

The lesson was about the different kinds of marketing. We saw some example of problems we can meet by exporting a product or a brand in an or several foreign countries.

Thursday:

10am-11am: Tutorial of "Marketing Research" (MKTG200) by Mr. Jose Sakakibara

A very friendly teacher ! We hadn't seen a lot of things in this lesson because it was the first one. I had already learnt how to make a marketing research in France, and it seems pretty similar here. The only difference is the English Terms. A good way to remind me some concepts or principles.

12am-2pm: Lecture of "Principles of Finance" by Mr. Don Ross

I had got some difficulties to understand the teacher in this lesson, maybe because of his way of speaking. That's why, I found this lesson hard to understand. However, I think it wasn't so difficult that I found. For the moment, I haven't really know what we had spoken about.

2pm-4pm: Lecture of "Marketing Research" by Mr. Alistair Marshall

The lesson was boring because of the important number of powerpoint slides we had seen and the fact I already know a part of them but the teacher is very nice. He made the lesson easier to follow thanks to his humour.

During this first week of class I saw a lot of differences between the French and Australian way of teaching. The Australian have got a less number of lesson hours per week (about 12-15) and a small number of different topics (about 4-5). The teachers are sometimes very friendly with the students, joking like no teacher would dare in France. I saw a student answering "Yeah man !" when the teacher was taking the register. Here students always keep their hats in the classrooms. The doors of these ones are always open and the students come and leave at anytime they want to without any reason. Sometimes, a student comes just before the ending of the class to sign the register or leave it just after had signed it. Others come into the classroom, stay for 10-15 minutes and leave or go out to smoke and come back after. It doesn't matter for the teachers who make their lesson for the people present. It's also common for a teacher to end the lesson earlier.

The behaviour of students would be unacceptable in France. I saw some student liying their naked foot on a chair. Moreover, a lot of them answer to their phone during the tutorial or the lecture.

I don't know how Australian can have good knowledges while they have only 8 different units (not studied more in details) every year during only 4 years. At ESDES we're studying for 5 years with between 20 and 30 different units every year...

ACU's North Sydney Campus