Hello! I'm Clever Apple!!
Today, I will write about my study at Wollongong university in Australia.
Today's topic is the course "Master of Education (TESOL)"!
The picture above is Catract Dam ! !
It was a very beautiful view, but I was scared because of my fear of heights, and my friends laughed at me...lol
After passing the tests and graduating from the college, I finally began to work on my master 's course, Master of Education!
By the way, my grade at language school was 'Credit', which is 'B' in Japanese universities....
Please see the article below about a preparation course at the college!!
■Please also see this!!■
I had a faint hope that I would be able to go to Australia by the time I finished my college course, but the Australian border still hadn't opened in March...
So, I have no choice but to start my graduate course online as well!
I had a lot of fun learning at the language school, and I was really looking forward to the graduate course, but I was overwhelmed by the course assignments...
The first thing that surprised me when the graduate school course started was that it was based on "self-study" !
Students read papers and textbooks on their own, watch recorded lectures, and post their opinions and thoughts on the forum.
At the language school, I enjoyed learning with other students and teachers in class.
However, in graduate school, we had classes only once a week for one to two hours! (You can exchange your opinions with professors and other students, and ask the professors questions about reading materials and things you don't understand!!)
That makes sense, because the amount of reading assignments was too much (for me)...
Basically, we had to read three 20-30 page papers or textbook chapters per week for each subject.
I took 4 subjects, so the total was about 240-360 pages...
I prefer paper version to digital version for reading, but when I was printing some reading materials on my printer at home, I somehow thought, "The amount is crazy"...lol
Even if I read it all the way through over time, there were some articles I couldn't understand at all.
In addition to this, there are about 3 assignments of 1500-2500 words per subject. (Please use "letters" instead of "words"! Lol)
Your grade in a subject is determined by the performance of the assignment, so you have to read while taking notes on what you can use for that assignment.
I took notes in Japanese, but this took a lot of time....
I didn't know what to write in the assignment, so it took about 15 minutes per page...
You may think, "Then why don't you just decide what to write in the assignment first and then read only the necessary parts!"
However, you have to read to get some background knowledge to start to write, and professors request to use some articles from the weekly readings.
Also, my bad habit showed up...
I was particular about studying, and I thought that "I 'm paying tuition fees a lot, so I have to read and learn everything properly!" and "I would fail if I don't read all of the materials."
However, I can't keep my concentration for a long time, and I can only study a little bit each day.
Every day, even on weekends, I didn't hang out and I read the reading materials while almost crying.
At the university orientation, I was able to get a rough idea of how much I should study for each subject in a week.
I forgot the details, but in my case of taking 4 subjects, I had to study about 7 hours a day.
That is also a guideline for local and international students who are fluent in English, so I had to spend more time....
However, when I think about it now, as can be seen in many study abroad experiences, it seems that not many students read all of their weekly readings...
Even in my course, there were not many students who read all of them.
However, at that time, I was so overwhelmed that I could only think about completing the reading.
The first week made things worse.
Basically, it is necessary to finish the reading for the week before the class starts, but I didn't know that, so I had to catch up with the reading pace.
That was sooooooo hard for me.
Two or three weeks after the course started, I felt that I had chosen a wrong course, and I started to looking into the tuition refund.
Thinking back on it now, it's kind of ridiculous to quit the course before I even submitted my assignments, but at the time, I was quite depressed, and I may not have been able to make appropriate decision.
I think a major problem was that I had no friends to consult with or study with.
My family lived together and I had some friends, but I felt a strange sense of loneliness when no one could empathize with my pain.
When I was studying for the IELTS exam, I was worried about how long I would have to continue studying and taking the exam, but this anxiety was different.
However, I found that even if I quitted the course right away, I would only get a part of my tuition back...lol
I couldn't move forward or backward, so with the persuasion of my family and friends, I decided to try my best until I got the results of the first assignment !
In order to get out of such a mentally painful situation, I take a certain two methods! !
It looks like it's going to be a bit long, so I'd like to talk about them in the second part of the article!
That's it for today!
May your study abroad be a wonderful one! ! !
