University

“Should I care? Should I care?”

If the question is about the Sydney Law Revue 2008, the answer is no. (The quote is from the “Holding out for a US Hero” skit, the closing skit.)

Last year, I wrote about the half-executed jokes that had the potential to be so much funnier. I wish I could make a similar comment this year. This time round, the directors somehow found it convenient to expend entirely with the punchlines in jokes. Instead, it was replaced with flat, meaningless drivel so that when it got to the closing, I was pretty much clapping out of politeness instead of sincere appreciation.

The occasional joke made in bad taste is to be expected in a revue; in fact, you could say it defines a revue. Normally, I’d have a good laugh at them. But given that the rest of the revue was so flat, when the (bad) jokes came around, the audience just didn’t buy them. We even had a heckler in the audience - and I pretty much agreed with everything he had to shout out. At one stage, one of the backstage members stuffed up with the mop between skits; that was almost one of the funniest moments (!).

China, with its astronomical growth and the Beijing Olympics just past, was an obvious topical subject. They didn’t fail to deliver on that count, but the jokes were so poorly delivered that they might have been mistaken for blatant racism.

To regain the confidence of its audience, the Law Revue in future years needs to create a coherent presentation that carries some kind of energy throughout the performance. A little bit of introspection might help; I’m sure if the directors actually sat down and listened to some of their own jokes, they might agree that they weren’t quite so funny after all. There was no doubt some great talent on stage; whether this talent was used most effectively is another question.

Gadens Lawyers have caught the attention of many a law student with their outrageous approaches to marketing themselves as an attractive, progressive employer.

This year was no different, and I couldn’t resist snatching their advert from a law school noticeboard (after the applications have closed) to bring you a choice selection of alternative application methods. Satisfying any of the following would, apparently, “entitle you to an instant interview”:

1. List the middle names of all the partners of Gadens Sydney as at 30 June 2008
2. Draft your application entirely in prose, in the format of Dr Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham”
3. Accompany your application with an Elle Woods style application DVD.

The flier then says, “Attempting to satisfy all 3 criteria is just plain showing off.”

I was actually curious enough to look into these three criteria. First, the middle names: their website has a list of partners in Sydney, but I saw no middle names. I suspect you’d either have to be an insider or know an insider (in which case, you’re looking good anyway), or email each and every one of them and risk suffering their wrath.

For the second one, I may just be a philistine, but I’ll admit that I had to look up the Green Eggs and Ham reference.

Enoch I am
I am Enoch
I am Enoch
Enoch I am

That Enoch-I-am!
That Enoch-I-am!
I do not like
that Enoch-I-am!

Do you like
boring old law firms?

I do not like them,
Enoch-I-am.
I do not like
boring old law firms.

OK, I give up - especially after finding out from Wikipedia that the entire book is written using only 50 different words.

Finally, while I have observed that a number of select individuals at law school would fit right into the set of Legally Blonde, I suspect they have at least some measure of self-dignity. But law students prove me wrong all the time.

The Darlington side of main campus of the University of Sydney was a renovator’s dream. Its endless array of concrete slabs might lay claim to coherence in some kind of brutalist architecture, but I suspect the university pretty much built the Engineering and Architecture faculties out of whatever spare cash they could find at the time.

The USyd Central building adjacent to the Union’s Wentworth building is part of the Campus 2010 plan to reverse the years of neglect that have rendered other universities with substantially more attractive (and marketable) campuses. The first part of the USyd Central to open, the SciTech Library, has now been delivered, and it sure was a delivery from heaven.

When you first walk into SciTech, the thing that strikes you is how different it is from any other library that you’ve been to. With your first steps past the stylishly glassy entrance, you are presented with a large, welcoming atrium that envelops you and draws you in; the splendour and the interesting topology of the library makes you feel like you are viewing spectacular scenery from the top of a mountain. To the right is a lounge-like area, with playful, lime-green chairs that wouldn’t look out of place in an Ikea store. To the left are the book stands, and in front is a sunken valley of study cubicles. At night, the entrance area is tastefully lit up with small spotlights that cast small pools of light on the soft carpet, and during the day, there is ample natural sunlight from the wall of glass.

As I intimated above, the furniture is one thing that sets SciTech apart from any other library I’ve seen. Colourful, distinctive, modern and definitely playful - as I write, some people are stacking up the lime-green chairs in various configurations, possible as the chairs are made up of three conjoined cylinders - the furniture is fitting for a science and technology library. From the jelly-coloured red and orange stools to the Ikea-like chairs, they are all inviting and very comfortable.

The library, from the ground up, has been designed to be more than just a repository of books. It appears to have been designed for students to learn, to study and to collaborate. The “study valley” that I alluded to before encases you as a cocoon encases a caterpillar, drawing you away from the hustle and bustle of the outside world into a study world of your own. The hours melt away as you study in one of the the plush, multicoloured pods, or the seats that line the green river-like divider that separates the study valley from one of the computer access areas. As you meander between the mellow-coloured bookshelves, you come across islands of tranquillity, where you can sit down and enjoy a book or two. If you prefer electronic learning, power points are abundant, and there are multiple computer rooms, with desktop computers and laptops - now that is something I haven’t seen before anywhere in the university. The only minor complaint is that the wireless connection here isn’t as stable as it could be.

Ultimately, a library isn’t much of a library unless it stores books. Although I find it disappointing that in the move to the new library, a large portion of the Engineering collection was moved into archival storage, because there just isn’t room at SciTech, there is something that they have done that is quite interesting; some shelves hold the book so that the front is displayed, much like special book displays at book stores.

If the rest of the Campus 2010 improvements are of the quality and thoughtfulness of the SciTech Library, the university is onto a winner. The design of the SciTech library shows a thoughtfulness to the needs of students and staff at the university. I look forward to the new law library with much anticipation - and to spending many days and nights at SciTech.

More photos here.

The SciTech Library: Level 1, Jane Foss Russell Building, on City Road

I’ve created my own wall calendar for semester 2, 2008, and you are free to use it if you like it. It’s big enough to see it at a desk’s depth away and to jot down important events and assessments. The calendar is correct for the University of Sydney, and I’m not sure whether it would be suitable for use at other universities.

I have other monthly calendars and a computer-based calendar to do all my actual event scheduling, but being able to see the entire semester in full does put everything into perspective - a semester really is quite short! (I’m crossing off the days as they go by - a ticking time bomb!)

There are few things that law students at Sydney University and at UNSW will defend more passionately: the quality of their respective institutions - just which law school is better?

I don’t profess to have the answer to this question, because it is unfair for me to answer this question when I have only attended one of them (Sydney). However, surely, a recourse to statistics would provide us with an objective answer?

And with statistics, UNSW has proclaimed themselves the King of Law Schools in Australia. They claim:

The Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales in Sydney leads all Australian universities for the quality of learning and teaching law. This is the second consecutive year the Faculty of Law, together with UNSW Australian School of Business, has achieved the top ranking in the business, law and economics cluster.

This claim is followed by a bunch of graphs that show that UNSW scores higher on a number of metrics, including “overall satisfaction”, “generic skills” and “good teaching” as measured by the Group of Eight. So far, this is all very convincing evidence that UNSW is better, right?

As Daniel pointed out when we were perusing these graphs together, there is a fundamental flaw with the statistics as presented. Where would they obtain measurements for metrics such “overall satisfaction” from? From their graduates of course. Unless they performed some kind of normalisation between the different universities, the outcome is liable to be affected by, for example, the difference between what Sydney and UNSW law students expect from their courses (maybe Sydney students just demand more?) or bias arising from the pride that students have in their own institution.

Clearly, statistics are one factor to consider in your choice of law school or university. However, it would be a mistake to base your decision merely on these statistics, or other statistics such as the proportion of graduates in full-time employment after a year (maybe more students from a particular university went into post-graduate study?). There is more to university than that. You need to consider the experience outside the classroom, in the form of clubs and societies and extracurricular activities. There is also a difference in culture that you need to consider. This was best highlighted for me when I watched the UNSW Law Revue last year; their jokes weren’t funny to me for the most part, yet all the UNSW-ers seemed to enjoy it; I put it down to a difference in culture.

So what do I think? I certainly don’t regret choosing Sydney University (for both my science and law degrees). I enjoy the intellectualism that pervades the place, although law students at Sydney tend to be more competitive than I find optimal.

We’ve had this up for some time, but here is the entry that Daniel, Ru Jih and I made last semester for the Filmsoc competition, entitled Hello. Watch it! You will never feel safe walking through main campus ever again!

There’s something lurking in the shadows around you…

Yes, you read the title right. The University of Sydney Library has a vast collection of feature films, in a variety of languages to boot. The collection is mainly at Fisher AV Reserve and at Roselle, but there will be enough at Fisher to keep you busy without having to trek over to the Sydney College of the Arts. If you have a library card, you will be able to borrow videos from Fisher AV Reserve for three hours at a time.

To explore what is out there, visit the Library Catalogue and bring up the Advanced tab:

Step 1: Enter the search as “feature film”.

Step 2: Select the DVD/VIDEO/SLID material type.

Step 3: Optionally, select the language that you want.

Step 4: Hit Search!

Alternatively, go to the Subject Search and enter “feature film”; all feature film subject categories begin with “Feature Film”, and you will then be able to narrow down your search by country of origin.

So there you have it! Many hours of viewing pleasure, for free, if you don’t mind the less-than-cinematic experience of sitting on library chairs and watching it on small television sets.

I previously noted that we found this clip on YouTube that decried the lack of quality of the UNSW Law Revue, or in the vernacular, that said it was a piece of crap… but I said I couldn’t find it. Found it now - thanks Janet!