The Importance of Reflective Thought for your first Semester at the ANU

by Andress Hamenda

June, 2007 was my first semester and also my first 2 month as an international student when I took my four courses at the ANU, Australia . I experienced (I would say) 3C shocks (currency shock, climate shock, and culture shock) which made me difficult to deal with those courses. I converted Australian dollar to Indonesian rupiah and got surprised with the living costs here. The costs for staying in a small room, buying food and textbooks are very expensive. I also arrived here when winter season began and got shocked with its coldness. The third C shock is culture shock which is vital to me and I would relate it to the class activities as following.

I remember when I was in junior high school level in Manado, Indonesia when my teacher told me “do not speak Andress, before I ask you to speak!”, in senior high school and university level I heard many times the other students said that “that is a stupid question” to students who asked questions. This makes us think twice if we want to ask questions even to confirm something which is still unclear to us.

Moreover, sometimes my teachers also tested students by asking back to the students who asked the teacher to prove that they did not intend to test the teacher.Another culture is that the attitude to show oral abilities in terms of questioning and answering frequently in a class may be interpreted as arrogant attitudes. These are the cultures in my hometown (Manado, Indonesia), which negatively impacts me to be active in questioning and answering orally.

Accordingly, when I attended my first four courses at the ANU in June 2007, I was surprised when one of the students interrupted a lecturer and started talking about his opinion. As soon as the student expressed his ideas, the other students also contributed their ideas even without raising their hands. If it happens at the university in my hometown, their friends would cry out with one voice and the students who are actually active will be embarrassed at this situation.Therefore, students tend to answer the questions only once or twice and students are also more likely to ask the teacher privately after the class.

Dealing with the Culture Shocks
You will be able to adapt the first 2C shocks (Climate and Currency) after six months here, so do not put too much worry about these. The third C shock (Culture) in academic environment particularly, will take more time to adapt than the others.

I found that it is essential to have a reflection even for only 10 minutes per day. In everyday activities, even before going to bed, I found myself recess and contemplate about what things I have done successfully, what things I have not achieved yet, and which areas I made mistakes during a day in an academic environment.

A reflective thought has been fulfilled since I can transfer it to my daily life and I find that “It is more valuable to realise that why we failed rather than experiencing our success without knowing why we could achieve or obtain the success!” You will never obtain worthwhile solution for your mistakes if your mind is too busy to think the other things and does not have time to reflect and to evaluate your mistakes. Students, for example, whose managerial understanding actually have been enriched successfully by writing journals and completing a course, but just think it merely as a compulsory assignment or course to be completed, will not obtain better understanding rather than spending more time to reflect what will be the real application of what they have obtained through that assignments or courses in a workplace in the future.

I also realise that students in the class are more likely to interpret your quietness in class as a passive behaviour. No matter how much you put extra effort outside the class in group meetings and contributed in the group assignments. They tend to define an active student is a student who is answering problems, questioning, and taking initiative to present for the whole audience.

Another problem I found is that it is more difficult to obtain your confidence since the other students have recognised you as a quiet student as you do not want to answer and give comments in class after you attended several lectures at the beginning of the courses you are taking. The valuable thing I learnt from this case is that it is really important to show your contribution in terms of questioning and answering since the very beginning of the lecture.