"Aren’t you on holidays now?”
“When do you finish?”
“How come you are handing up an essay in January?”

One of the tricky things about studying at UniSA is it’s semester system. I’ve had so many questions from so many people, and I thought (hope) a blog entry might explain it for once and for all.

There are 7 study periods in a year. What you would traditionally think of as Semester 1 corresponds to Study Period 2, and Semester 2 to Study Period 5. Study Period 1 is for the BUGE (Broadening Undergraduate Education, an intensive summer school program that ensures undergrads don’t just exclusively study one field, but have a broader base by the time they graduate) subjects. Study Period 7 starts in early Nov and finishes late Jan. Study periods 3, 4, 6 and 7 are all ten week units.

The university has a lot of international students, and is heavily reliant on them for revenue. Most of the popular subjects for international students (eg business and accounting) are ten week subjects. Having 4 ten week terms means that there are 4 points at which students can enter the Uni system and generate revenue. Many of my subjects have been in the more traditionally structured 13 week (?) study periods, but every time I choose a business subject, I move into the ten week stream again, hence my schedule is all over the place and I had a total of 2 weeks off last year, and having another 2 off now.

Most of this is based on what I’ve gathered during the year, and I haven’t been able to find any info about it on the UniSA website… If I got something wrong please feel free to correct me in the comments and I will revise the info up here.

In other study news, last year went pretty well overall, one credit and one high distinction, and the rest were distinctions. I’ve enrolled in this years subjects and I will be doing a placement (which I’m arranging now) as well as two subjects; Managing Change which is a 10 week Human Resources course starting on a public holiday the day after my birthday (great scheduling!) and Interpersonal Violence, which is a 4 day intensive that starts next week. I hope to get everything done for Interpersonal Violence before Managing Change starts. Otherwise I may go mad.

• mr. mac said on 07/01/31 at 02:39 PM.....

  What, no mention of the new ‘job’ at school ! we would love to hear about it ..............