University of Melbourne [An Unbiased Review by A Life That Travels]

– G'day and welcome toA Life That Travels.

I'm Rob Malicki and today I'm at the University ofMelbourne and oh my God, this place is amazing! As always with universityreviews this is like a no BS, no propaganda look around.

Let's go and have alook around the campus, talk to some students andcheck out what this place is all about.

I can tell you what though, to start with, I like what I see.

(cheerful music) (soaring music) While the University of Melbourne is one of the group of eightuniversities in Australia, basically the grouping of Australia's top eight research institutes and they're sometimes called the sandstones and I can tell you what there's a heck of a lot ofsandstones in this place.

So the thing I find isquite surprising is just the amount of open spacethat the university has.

These little nooks andcrannies, open areas with plenty of littleplaces for students to get together, study and just make the most of the incredible historyand ambience of a place like the University of Melbourne.

It's truly impressive.

The university ranksincredibly well typically between like the 30th and40th in the whole world.

I think one of the mostimportant metrics is the facts that it ranksnumber seven in the world for graduate employability which means when you come and study here, you're going to get a job at the end and that's obviously extremely valuable.

Also important in termsof rankings is talking about student satisfactionand the Uni of Melbourne actually ranks very close to the average or even slightly below theaverage depending on disciplinary of course for student satisfaction and I think one of the reasons for that is because it's a huge university, 48, 000 students so you knowsome of the other universities that I've visited you have have studentstalking about how close the community is, howthey really personally known by their lectures and academics and perhaps at some ofthese bigger universities they may be struggle with that as an issue in terms of making students feel really connected.

This university is incredibly connected.

The alumni of the Universityof Melbourne are very well looked after both domesticallyand internationally.

I highly recommend that youlook at the quality indicators of learning and teaching websites, the QILT website by theAustralian government because what that does is actually break down what students say studying at various universities is like including the Uni of Melbourne.

So you can actually break that down by not only this institution but also the area that you study in and you can point outthings like how students satisfied with their various courses.

There are plenty ofother good data out there which help you make a good decision about a university's right for you.

– Just how multicultural diverse it is that turned out to be true and it's great.

And also how kind of howartsy Melbourne can be.

– So I'm very happy with the teachers and the friends I've madehere and the different culture and representing French Club here although I'm not Frenchand you know it's one of the things about representation.

– It's kind of having access to like other people and other minds that are really passionateabout what they do.

That know and love about what they do and have like experience and expertise but at the same time like these minds can be hard to find youknow because the university can be so big and so alienating, yeah.

– Yeah, I think what surprised me was how much is availableto students, like there are so many clubs, somany societies but yeah it's not always presented to you I think.

You know you have todo the looking yourself like there are you know book clubs, board game clubs, all sorts of stuff.

– [Rob Malicki] Everything? – Yeah because there areso many students here yeah I think what moststudents have in common is that they want to learn.

– It's hard to say, Ithinks I was actually surprised in a very goodway in the amount of as Alex was saying like study groups passion projects and stuffthat appear around the uni.

I think I've like learnedeven more from stuff that's kind of peripheral to my classes than I have from my classes in some ways.

And I was like really, really taken aback and really happy to find that there are other people out there who are passionate about things whether it'slearning, whether it's like extending studies further, making podcast or like being involved inenvironmental projects.

– Wow, I'm loving this lobby space.

Like a good mixture ofcollaborative spaces people chatting to eachother working on projects and quiet little nooks and crannies.

They've done a really good job here.

Very, very student friendly.

Lizzy and Zarin were justtelling me that every Tuesday there are bandsplaying and free barbecue.

That's pretty seriously awesome! Free food! The University of Melbourne has got one of the most active and successful global learning programmes in Australia.

Thousands and thousandsof students from here every year are able toundertake international study experiences likeexchanges, study tours.

They call them UMOS, University of Melbourne Overseas Study subjects, internships, volunteer all sorts of different things.

So many extracurricular opportunities that allow you to study and travel at the same time.

Definitely an advantage if you can take part in that and the university invests millions of dollars inscholarships to support to have those kinds of experiences.

There are specific disciplineareas that you know other universities have aspecific area of expertise you could actually end up with better classes somewhere elsebut if Uni of Melbourne ease up the top of your list of choices it's a pretty fantastic place, pretty exceptionalinstitution, amazing resources and that's obviously oneof the advantages of being one of the oldest mostprestigious and I think personally one of the best organised and have great leadership, all these things count to contributing to beingexceptional institution it's not just luck.

I've loved my time hereat Uni of Melbourne such an incredible campusall the nooks and crannies amazing places to hangout, sports facilities unlimited places to getfood and most importantly for people like me coffee.

But most importantly itseems like people really enjoy the university.

So much to see and do and I've just loved all thedifferent spaces and courtyards.

All the history and the culture and the architecture and one of the things that's really struck meis this great atmosphere and vibe and then I thinkthis will make a pretty incredible place to study.

I think this place is alright.

Number one uni in Australia, how do you rank it? On a slide, it rankspretty freaking high on the A Life That Travels scale.

Anyway, whatever you'regetting up to today I hope it's a good one, I'm Rob Milecki.

I'll see you next timeon the Life That Travels.

See ya later (calm music).

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