First week

Hey welcome to my first blog post. My name is Anthony and I am studying a single degree in Law at, as the name of the blog suggests, QUT. The purpose of this post is to inform others how it feels to walk into QUT for the very first time. While many people would mark the official start as Monday I would like to go back to the orientation.

After the long bus ride, and the 10 minute walk to QUT, on the first day I finally made it in one piece. I made the decision to not bring anything with me but a bus ticket and the clothes on my back (amongst a few modern day essentials such as mobile phones, bank accounts, and everything else needed to survive in the harsh city environment). As I walked in the one thing I noticed, and that I still notice, that a poor soul had set up shop on the left of the pavement. They sold fruit and cold drinks. Why anyone would purchase fruit on orientation day I don’t know but each to his own. Although I have to say walking out of QUT today I did kind of yearn for an apple, maybe it was a smart business plan after all.

I continued up the path and dodged the many advertisers asking for money/support/who ever the hell knows. I walked around a bit and the campus seemed familiar, then I remembered in grade 12 we had a class excursion to Gardens Point.

After some aimless walking I decided I should get my ID card. With over an hour until my next orientation activity started I thought I would be safe joining the line. After being in the line for a few minutes I met a few people and we talked for an hour or so which made the long line seem quite short. I probably won’t see them again but it made the time at least somewhat exciting. I should mention I never even got my ID card that day, although killing time talking and laughing which other new uni students made the hour wait not seem so wasted.

The orientation itself was in a way informative but I could see by the end of the day many people falling asleep or walking out of the lecture room. Naturally though these house keeping tasks are quite boring. I being a patient person though didn’t mind too much. The most informative was the input from the 4^th year students. Unlike the lecturers they can drop hints and tips about how it’s really like to study at QUT.

After the orientation there was a week break before yesterday attending QUT properly for the first time. There was just a lot of information about each subject and just an introduction to assessment and what is expected and all that good stuff.

One thing that got me though about studying law at QUT is that in a number of lectures it was stated that we can’t just have our own opinions and that if we want to state opinions we should go do journalism. One would think we could state any opinion if it was backed up logically. This would be my only criticism so far. Everyone should be welcome to their own opinion, no matter how unethical or immoral it could possibly be to others, so long as it is reinforced with a strong, well reasoned, and logical argument. I think our own opinions are the essence of law. Instead of separating opinions from arguments we should be using arguments to back up opinions.

Well that’s all from me for now. Look for more next week.