Perth, where everybody is your ‘mate’

I am currently studying at the Curtin University as part of my semester abroad. It has been a little bit over a month now, since I have arrived in Perth. Even though Perth is the biggest city in Western Australia, it doesn’t feel really crowded, dirty or unorganised at all. Curtin University is located “sor” which stands for “South of the river”. The campus is huge and has about 36,000 students enrolled at the campus in Bentley. All around the campus, you will find places to hang out, hammocks and much more. Curtin has two central bus stations, a health-care center and many other facilities that are impressive to me, compared to our little campus in Hamburg.

When I first got to Perth, I stayed in an Airbnb close to campus in order to get to know the region and areas around Perth. I lived there for the first 3 weeks, which was a good solution to finding a long-term stay for the rest of my semester. I just moved and live in the CBD now, which is Perth’s city centre. It’s a student housing accomodation, which is really close to everything and just opened in Feburary of this year. I can recommend getting an Airbnb for the first few weeks, so that you can find the perfect living space adjusted to your needs and wishes.

Macromedia has some rules about the classes you have to take at Curtin. That way you are only supposed to organise your timetable, based on the courses Macromedia chose. This is really nice as you can plan your week, and what days you want to study or work. Besides spending three days of the week at University, I started working in a restaurant in the CBD, which gives me the opportunity to earn some money to travel or going out with friends.

The University had the O Week, which was really nice in order to getting to know some people, finding your way around campus and settling in. Not only that, but we also got to meet a Koala on the second day of the orientation week. They had food ready for everybody, activities like making your own planetarium, meditation and a lot more. I am very pleasently surprised with the university’s organization. The first week of classes, you get a unit outline, which reflects the topics week for week and the assessment tasks and dates. That way you can plan ahead and start studying for the exams, whenever you like.

The city Perth itself reminds me a lot of the United States. Everybody is genuinely nice and willing to help you with whatever. The city is close to a lot of beaches and has a lot of different pretty areas. Even though it is technically still winter here in Western Australia, we have already had some amazing sunny days, that we were able to spend on the beach. The other students are always down to do whatever and the Australian slang is quite fun to catch up on. Curtin has a pub on campus, which is really fun since there is always something going on every night. A lot of my friends live on campus, where a lot of the parties are going down as well. There are a lot of different campus housings, but the one most popular, or at least with what I can tell the most parties is called “Erica Underwood”. Drinking is quite expensive over here, but at least you don’t have to pay the entrance and can find some spots that are relatively cheap over here.