Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Virtual Tour of Melbourne Uni (~jinghan)

My alarm was ringing. It was a Sunday. I looked out the window. It was unfortunately cloudy as clouds could get.

So why was I up on a Sunday? Why was I caring about the weather on a Sunday? It’s Melbourne University Open Day of course!

But wait! Why am I caring about open day even though I’m already enrolled at Melbourne University? Well, my friends, I was being a tour leader. Let me take you on my virtual version of my tour…

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Meeting point: Union Lawn (AKA concrete lawn) – in front of the big metal sculpture

Hello, are you here for the tour? That’s good. What’s your name? Nice to meet you, I’m Jinghan. Can you find you name on this list? Have you been around the campus before? Well welcome to Melbourne Uni then.

That building over there, that’s the Redmond Barry building, I have most of my lectures there. And behind that is the physics building, I have my labs and tutorials in there. For most of my subjects I have three lectures a week, and a tutorial and possibly a workshop or a lab depending on a subject. Okay, I think we can head off now.

Union House:

So this is Union House, I would say its the social, and food hub of the university.  Have a wander through the food court if you want.

Okay lets head upstairs. This is where the Rowden White Library is, it’s my favourite library complete with “do not study” signs. It has novels, DVDs, comics, but no text books. There’s even the TV room with beanbags where someone people come to sleep between classes.

System Gardens

Over there is the pool and the gym, it’s fairly cheep for students, and is conveniently on campus. I quite like the pool anyway. And this walkway here is called the Professor’s Walk, because the professor’s residences used to be here.

And here is the Botany Building, my friend thinks it is absolutely wonderful that the Botony Building is covered in vines, and is entirely green in summer. And behind here is the most beautiful little garden in the university, the botanist’s best kept secret. Here is the System Gardens, with it’s little white tower in the middle. It’s the most beautiful place to sit on sunny days (unlike today).

Baillieu Library and the Bookshop:

Here’s the bookshop, books at uni are quite expensive so we buy the essentials and do our best to borrow the rest. Some departments print bounded lecture notes and readers and you buy those here as well. And if you are ever in need of melbourn university branded golf balls, you’ll also find those in the Bookshop.

Now here’s the Baillieu Library, the one without novels and DVDs and where you are expected to study. I come and study with classmates here. And it’s also handy that all the textbooks are available for two hour or over night loans, so I don’t have to lug my tome of a physics book to uni in order to study. Have a look around if you want.

South Lawn:

I’m not sure what they do at other Universities, but at Melbourne Uni we like to do a lot of lawn sitting. Here’s the South Lawn; on any particular day there is always at least one, if not three barbecues and student society activities on. There’s a car park under here, they designed it especially to accommodate the roots of the trees above. And there’s the Old Law Building which is one of the oldest building on the campus, and the Old Arts Building next to it, was the last sandstone building built.

If we walk out this gate, you’ll see university square, there’s the Law Building, the spotty one is the Commerce Building they call “The Spot”, and infront of it is the IT building. I have my Informatics lectures and workshops over there, so on those days I do have to treck all the way across campus to get there.

ERC and Student Centre:

This is the Easter Resource Center, or ERC, it’s another library but has more working spaces and less books than the Baillieu. There are nice couches, collaborative working spaces, lots of computers and laptops you can borrow if all the computers are used up. If you come around here we’ll be in the Frank Tate Learning Center, which has more working spaces, though I sometimes see students sleeping on the couches in here.

If you press that button you’ll be able to open the door… In front of us is the Eastern Precinct Student Center. Each of the courses has their own Student Center, this one is for Science, Biomedicine and Engineering students. There’s a help desk and we can come here for time-tabling issues, enrolment problems, or just for course advice.

Well that concludes our tour. Do you have any questions? If not you can head across there to Wilson Hall where they have the Science Stalls or head out on your own way. Thankyou for taking my tour!