Arrived since already three weeks, I could now tell you that Sydney is such an amazing city to live. Beautiful beaches, parks, landscapes, streets are all of the things that I loved discover here.

But let's talk more about the university where I'm gonna study during this semester abroad :  MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

A little bit of history...

Macquarie University has been established in 1964.The chancellor is Michael Egan, and the vice-chancellor is Bruce Dowton. It's a public university of Australia. The name of the University has been given in reference of Major General Lachlan Macquarie, a British career military officer. It was the fifth Governor of New South Wales between 1810 and 1821, and was crucial in transforming this state from a penal colony into what is now Australia.
Since its creation, the university has been doing things differently. It was actually established to break traditions of a simple university. The will of Macquarie is to "be distinctive, progressive and to be transformational".

Macquarie University is ranked in the top ten Universities in Australia and in the top two per cent of universities in the world. In 2013, the number of students was more than 38 000.

 Location and organisation in Macquarie

Macquarie University is located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. You can go to the city center in less than 20 minutes.

The campus have more than 125 hectares with green parks, facilities, and buildings. There are 6 faculties in Macquarie which are for example faculty of Art, Business and Economics, Human Sciences, etc... University also provide services and facilities such as a new library (as you can see on the first picture), Hospitals and clinics, sport and recreation center, some museums and art collections, a huge food court, and accommodations.

Welcoming integration and student interaction  

Even though I couldn't go to the Orientation Week, just before the beginning of the semester, there are lots of events to meet people here, and make new friends. Firstly, a good thing to know is that I live in the Macquarie University Village, which is on the campus. It really helps me meet new people, because there are lots of activities organised such as sports competition, free dinner, and even an Easter egg hunt. In the University, I went to the Welcoming meeting for international students, where I could visit this huge campus, met new people, and understood the organisation of the University. There was also a day where all of the associations presented themselves, and you can meet people that have the same interest than you. But even with all of these activities, it was kind of hard at the beginning to figure things out around here. It was hard to find the supermarket, to speak English all the times, to understand what you have to do in lectures... Today, I can say that I finally understand how this University works, how people live here, and it is easier to interact with people. Everyday is a new day to discover new things, meet new people, and have fun in this incredible environment!

Class content and cultural differences 

Here, the class content is not really the same than in France. You have one lecture and one tutorial each week for one subject. So as I took 4 subjects, I have 4 lectures and 4 tutorials each week. Each lecture spend 2 hours, and a tutorial spend 1 hour. You have the Ilearn Macquarie Website where you can find all of the information and homework that you have to do for the next class. I think that here electronic devices are more important than in France, because you can't know what is happening next week without checking on Ilearn.  

About the cultural differences in classrooms, here people come from all over the world. I had the chance to meet lots of international people such as people coming from Bangladesh, Denmark, Singapore, United States... There are more than 11 000 international students  in this University, and so lots of international associations.

To conclude with this University description, Macquarie is a good place to live, to study and to have amazing experiences!