Touchdown in Perth

By Beth Cook (UWA, Australia)

My goodbyes stretched out from the last day of my exams to the first days in Perth, which meant that I never felt like I was going away until I suddenly found myself in a 6 hour Chemistry lab not knowing where anything was.  

I had wanted to see everybody once more before leaving for the world’s most isolated city. This meant I had countless picnics and walks, one night of gossip and three tearful goodbyes with the same friend as plans kept coming up over the course of June. Then, after doing all the packing that day, I set off with my parents to Heathrow one hot Thursday evening, set for (conversely) cold WA. 

Our layover was in Bangkok, and so we had a whistle-stop tour around the city for my first time in Thailand. We were able to see the reclining Buddha, the flower markets and try some exceptional street food before our second long-haul flight. We landed at 8am and set about moving me into my accommodation, this included (much to my father’s dismay) the annual Ikea trip to get bedding. 

I managed to get a room at St Catherine’s College, one of the five UWA College accommodations and a five minute walk from campus. It has been a very new experience living in a college, after Oak House and student house, but I have enjoyed the community (albeit not the mandatory training sessions during O Week). Being a resident at Cats means you have to adhere to their standards and expectations, which means opportunities to compete in inter-college games, attend Formal Halls as well as maintaining good academic standing (eg. through their intra-college tutoring system). It has been helpful to combat any feelings of loneliness as anytime you enter the dining hall for a meal, you are more likely than not to see someone you know, and you end up having an hour and a half long lunch. 

O Week (their ‘re-freshers’) offered a chance to meet international students at UWA and in my College, and it has surprised me that my closest friends are now Brits but also French and Austrian and German. With these friends I visited Cottelsoe Beach and Fremantle Markets, the beaches are absolutely stunning, and we befriended a pianist in the market as he played my friend’s favourite songs! 

Then came week 1 of semester, and adjustments to how UWA operates. I found the difference in labs the most significant: not hard to adapt to but just odd initially. For each unit’s lab sessions, you are given a key to a locker of glassware that is only used by you, and so you must complete an inventory and keep on top of what is/isn’t yours. There is also a cost for lab coats – good to check! The workload has also been surprisingly high for so early in the semester, this is mostly due to the fact they apply more weight to coursework/post-lab worksheets than at Manchester, and so there are more deadlines than just preparation for the final exam.

The best thing I’ve found so far is that on a weekday afternoon, it is easy to get a group together and go to the beach for a swim or to enjoy the sun, even in the winter! I hope to visit some waterfalls whilst it is winter here, and plan a reading week trip when not getting uni work done.