Hiking, surfing, swimming, scenic tours, and an opera. These are not typical activities of a writing class, but all things that I got to experience this summer in Australia with my Writing for Engineers class.
A few weeks ago I wrote about what I did this summer, and I talked briefly about my trip to Australia, but for the rest–including my internship experience– you can read here.
For two weeks, the 25 of us in the class stayed at a hotel in downtown Sydney. We partnered with a student travel company who prepared all the accommodations and arranged tours. Our professor was with us too and we had classes in the travel company’s conference room 32 floors up in a skyscraper with its windows overlooking Sydney’s Central Business District.
The typical structure of our days consisted of either class or an educational tour of some sorts and then free time to explore the places we visited. My favorite tour was the historical and architectural tour where I learned about the original layout of Sydney, heard the history and conflict of the British settlers and the Aboriginal peoples, and saw ruins of some of the original buildings.
It was interesting to experience all of this in August, because it was winter! (due to the flipped seasons in the Southern Hemisphere.) Nonetheless, we still managed to have quite the extensive itinerary outdoors. We surfed at Manly beach, hiked the Blue Mountains at Scenic World, and swam in the Bondi Beach Icebergs pool (which without a wetsuit—was quite cold.)
But the crème de la crème of all things on this trip was the opera at Sydney Opera House. We all toured it before and then got to go to the evening showing of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini. This was my first in person opera and it was fantastic. The live music and the booming voices of the actors made a phenomenal performance.
The theme of this whole class and trip was to frame the world of Engineering through a lens of global perspective, particularly that of Sydny Australia. The lived experiences, in depth tours, and excursions we had on this trip truly allowed us to grasp for a brief two weeks a glimpse of what life in Sydney might look like; This trip has been the highlight of my engineering experience thus far.
