Tired? Perhaps. (Sophie)

I am in the most wonderful mood right now. However as soon as I finish writing this I am going to RUN TO BED AND COLLAPSE AND SLEEEEEP!

The last few days have been so incredibly busy. Yesterday was full of Pre-Employment at David Jones (i.e. filling out a million forms which resulted in running late on my schedule and having to miss a lecture…). I did get a thrill out of the situation however as I had to park in this REALLY difficult car park at the train station…and I succeeded. I got out of the car, had a look and felt very proud of myself. [Yes folks, I only got my license 1.5 months ago!].

Didn’t get home til about 6:30pm last night which was a long day for me after being up early for the David Jones stuff in the morning.

Today was a 6am start. My parent’s car was due for a service in the city…so I had offered to drive it in for them and pick it up this evening. The plan was to leave as early as possible to avoid traffic. Somehow despite being awake at 6, it took me an hour to just get dressed and downstairs for breakfast. [Not good]. I finally got out the door, and had not driven in the city in peak hour traffic before…so very interesting to say the least. I am still alive….so I succeeded [BIG accomplishment!]

After running half an hour late to my first tute due to the car thing….finally got to Uni. Straight after the tute I went to my first “Student/Staff Consultative Meeting” with the Accounting & Business Information Systems Department. It was FANTASTIC!!! The head of the department, Professor Stewart Leech, led the meeting and was very friendly and easy going. I felt very comfortable and relaxed and I think the meeting was a great success. We got some very interesting discussion going about the learning atmosphere of the department…and it is so wonderful as a student to know how much the department cares about creating the best learning experience possible for students.

One thing that I feel is most important, is to remind students of the importance of Quality of Teaching surveys. So many students underestimate how seriously these are taken. I believed they were important because one or two of my lecturers had mentioned the results before, but at the meeting today I found out how truly fundamental they are to determining things on all levels; from how subjects are taught, to the very existence of subjects. The people who read these reports are those people teaching you and directing departmental goals – it goes right up to the top. Hence it is so important to take them seriously and write honest comments about your subjects. I always try to go to an extra effort of writing a comment as well, not just ticking a box.

For students doing BPA who have no idea why they are doing this subject: the point of this subject is to give you an understanding of how different accounting practices tie in with the formation, and running of ACTUAL REAL-LIFE BUSINESSES. It is so when you go out into the workplace (as an Accountant), you know how a business functions from start to end, and how all the processes are interconnected in regards to accounting information – leading to outcomes of business success or failure. Kinda makes things seem like they have a bit more of a point right?
So…after the meeting, I rushed off to my actual BPA tute! Funnily enough at the end…I got chatting with my tutor…he is a great guy…really puts in the work for preparation and is A+ as far as things go (if only all tutors were up to his standards). Anyways – he actually told me how boring he thinks BPA is right now in the way it is taught – to the point that he doesn’t want to teach it next year! – Hence he is planning on putting a submission in on how he thinks it should be run. I hope he does. I think any suggestions would be great as this COULD be an interesting subject. I understand how it is a challenge to really achieve the aims of a subject sometimes…you just have to keep tinkering until you find something that fits I think.

So by my 1-2pm ‘break’ I had received two assignments back….I was relieved to see my hard work in them had paid off. HOWEVER…I was quite shocked (as were a number of others) when a particular subject tutor informed us of the way assignments were marked in regards to a particular question….which if didn’t include a diagram was “immediately 5/10”. This was of great shock to me as this question was very literary-based.