Melody from Brisbane, Studying Chemical Engineering
As a first year it’s a big responsibility to take up to produce a production that has over 50 people in it, but it’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had of leadership and responsibility, and the fact that college provides these opportunities for first years I think is really great.
Melody from Brisbane, Studying Chemical Engineering
Melody's Experience:
I’m Melody and I’m from Brisbane and I study Chemical Engineering and I’m in first year of New College.
I had two cousins who came to New College and they were like, “you should stay at a college on campus”...I looked at the other colleges and I kind of realised that New College was quite a bit cheaper than the other colleges and it still provided the same utilities, if not more than the other colleges so it seemed like the perfect option and the community here has made university so amazing.
When I moved out of home I was a seventeen year old young girl and my parents were obviously terrified for me moving out by myself and having to live by myself, but moving to college I felt a lot safer, especially since this is a Christian college. Even though I’m not particularly Christian, there’s a lot of the Christian values - of making sure that everyone’s welcome, making sure there’s no judgement and everybody feels like they can belong to a community… and I think my parents saw that and they were like, “she’ll be right!”
So we have this thing called O’Week, which is the week before university when you arrive. It’s just one of the most fun weeks I’ve experienced in my life. It’s just full on socialising... and what made O’Week go really well is the O’Week leaders organised an amazing week and really made us feel welcomed into college and this guy [Adithya] was actually my O’Week leader this year so he probably has a lot to say about that.
So there’s a student team here at college called the New College Student Association Executive Team and they’re basically in charge of controlling student life at college and so they run social events, sport events, community service events or just fun events around the college. They make college so lively and so fun. Every week there’s something on.
One good thing that college provides is that they provide a huge range of sports for you to be able to play. Even though I’m quite bad at sports, everybody makes sure that I still have a turn on the field. I’m still having fun.
Revue is basically a huge production college puts on every year. As a first year it’s a big responsibility to take up to produce a production that has over 50 people in it, but it’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had of leadership and responsibility, and the fact that college provides these opportunities for first years, I think is really great...
[In] coming here to college we’ve all been thrown in here, mixed up and you just some of the greatest friends here and I know these bonds last a long time. Even 10 years on from college, a lot of people get married to people they meet in college, so it just shows…you make very strong relationships in college…and that it is something that lasts a lot longer after college happens.