Welcome to Better Late Than Fresher! We’re chronicling the real-life experiences of a brand new UWA fresher from O-Day to final exams, and trying to offer some helpful advice and guidance along the way.
Follow the Harry Potter Society on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UWAHarryPotterSociety/
TRANSCRIPT:
[light, poppy intro music]
B: Hello everyone and welcome to our third episode of Better Late than Fresher, the wonderful fortnightly podcast where we – well, where we’re meant check in with our fresher student Cohen and see how he’s going with his university experience and pass down a little bit of knowledge, and a bit of wholesome advice. Slight problem with that this week – Cohen hasn’t turned up to the recording session…
[both laugh]
B:… which is all good, because we have the lovely Laney sitting in with us, who’s also a uni student! Not quite a fresher, but she has a lot of advice to give…
L: Not quite!
B: So I guess to start Laney- do you want to tell everyone a little bit about yourself?
L: Yep so I’m Laney; Im’ in my final semester at uni, and I’m doing a Bachelor of Commerce in Economics and Business Law!
B: Cool! And the reason that we have Laney on the show today is because we’ve had this entire saga about the Harry Potter Society. For people who have been listening since the first episode, Cohen and I have been talking about finding the Harry Potter Society and potentially getting Cohen signed up and we haven’t been able to locate the Harry Potter Society. Laney reached out to us as the President of the Harry Potter Society?
L: Yeah.
B: … to talk a little bit about the Harry Potter Club, what they do, and a bit more about uni life in general. So, do you want to start off talking about the Harry Potter Club?
L: Yeah! So, we started the Harry Potter Club last year in May and we were at a barbeque and we kind of just realised- well I was like, ‘Is there a Harry Potter Club?’ and then everyone was like ‘no’ and I was like ‘Oh, we should start one!’ And no one took me seriously! I don’t think that anyone thought that we would actually do it, and I actually did! I got all the forms and everything and was like ‘Oh okay, so we’re doing this!’ So we made a video- I was really nervous about presenting in front of SOC and stuff- like that is 140 people looking at you and judging. We came up with a video, so they watched a video and we can have to speak and that went down well… I think the video’s on our Facebook. So then last semester, we had movie nights and we had quidditch lessons and that was really good to get our name out there, get exposure… and then we did a bake sale with the Filipino Australian Society- I love them. And they seemed to really get behind it; I was like [apprehensive voice] ‘Ohhhh, Harry Potter Society’ but, you know, people were actually…
B: Well, its founded from a love of the books I guess, and the movies.. so obvious then yeah it’s a lot of time so that’s good I’m technician UWA
L: Yeah! Then, so this semester we were doing quidditch lessons…
B: Excellent!
L: …so that’s starting in week 5!
B: So how does quidditch actually work? Like translating it from the movies into, or the books into real life?
L: So instead of brooms we have like pipes that you put between…
[hysterical laughter]
B: That’s fantastic; so you sit on pipes?
L: You sit on pipes and ride! It is actually so… you get a lot of cardio, because you had to… there’s a rule which I’m not really sure… for the past quidditch lessons I’ve been doing the barbecue… if you come to quidditch lessons you have a free BBQ… so I haven’t really played close attention. But you run aground and if you get tagged you have to run back, so you’re just running. You use flattened volleyballs for the Quaffles and then like the Snitch is a person who wears yellow shorts…
[hysterical laughter] So they’re an actual person?
L: He runs around and gets the most exercise- he just runs around, he’s getting chased by two people, two Seekers from the opposite teams…
B: Whilst they’re holding a pole between their legs.
L: No no no.. actually yeah, they do!
B: That’s full on!
L: Yeah, it is actually full on… it’s a lot! A lot of people had fun with it. This semester we had O-Day and we had Club Carnival in week 2 and week 3 we had our Sundowner – our Scamander Sundowner – which…
B: Amazing!
L: I know! We were really proud to come up with that! Which lot of people went to actually so that was nice; and they played quidditch, they had a go at it which was really cool and they really enjoyed it. We also have Prosh coming up…
B: So for listeners who don’t know, who don’t go to UWA, Prosh is a really big thing for UWA. Every year we put out a charity newspaper which is all written by students; it’s meant to be funny and satirical, and we sell it for money around Perth to raise money for certain charities. 100% of all profits go to the three or four charities which are chosen, right?
L: I think there’s four this year.
B: Usually all the clubs and societies dress up, go out onto the streets and look like idiots and sell a paper- what’s the Harry Potter Club’s theme?
L… its Harry Potter…
[both laugh]
B: You know I wouldn’t have guessed that!
L: Someone was like ‘Just do Star Trek!’
B: Just to subvert the theme…
So yeah, you know, the thing is… moving forward – I’m going to put this down for future committees- is like the theme should be Harry Prosher and… like whatever the theme is for Prosh this year. So like, this year because the Prosh theme is Stranger Things, our club team is Harry Prosher and the Upside Down!
B: Very cool… okay, now hold listeners. Give me one second, because I believe Cohen’s arrived outside…
[muffled voices in the distance]
L: Hi! Wait, do we have enough headphones?
B: We’re just gonna make it work…
L: Oh god…
B: This is the arrival of Cohen, everybody…
C [muffled]: Hi…
B: Cohen, you chuck on a headset, and we were just having a discussion about what Prosh is! Do you know what Prosh it?
C: Kind of!
B: Yeah, kind of ideas?
C: I mean, you go into the city at ridiculously early hours in the morning that, like, I didn’t even know existed until now and you sell magazines to people on the street in ridiculous costumes!
B: That’s about accurate! Are you doing that with St Cat’s?
C: No I have to go to Albany…
B: RIP, so you’re driving down to Albany?
C: I mean, I’m catching the bus down to Albany… and like Albany people don’t know what Prosh is. So I’m trying to imagine people in Albany trying to walk to work whilst there’s people dressed up as penguins and other shit, assorted shit going on in the street.
B: We’re delighted to have you with us today Cohen, because we were like ‘Don’t know how we’re going to do this without the titular fresher involved’…
C: I’m so glad to be here.
B: No, we were saying before, we were just having a chat about the Harry Potter Club, because Laney is President of the Harry Potter Club!
C: I love you!
[Laney giggles]
B: And the fact that they play quidditch as a thing!
C: I love you even more!
L: Naaaaw!
B: Moving on – you’ve had tutes this week, Laney’s had tutes this week.
C: Yes!
B: How did that go?
C: It’s going pretty well, except t I always forget when they are. I don’t want to say that I’m always the one that’s knocking on the door like 10 minutes after they start like ‘Hello?’
B: See originally you promise that you’d…
L: Can I just tell a really quick tute story?
B: Go for it.
L: First year macroeconomics; I rocked up at 2, because I thought that the tute was at 2, and they were just finishing up! [laughs] Like, it started at 1 and everyone kind of looked at me and I was like ‘Okay…’ Everyone in my group was like [whispers] ‘Okay, what are you doing here?’ and I’m like…
B: Get out, get out!
L: …and they were like, ‘Just go and mark your name of the list…;’
B: So it looks you were marked off and so you can pretend that you were there!
L: Yes, just so soul crushing because I was so happy because I was early!
C: Yeah, don’t worry. A similar thing happened to me during a first Spanish tute; so I got it all…
L: You do Spanish?
C: I do Spanish!
L: Spanish 1401?
C: 1401!
L: Yes, I did that last year!
B: There you go!
L [excited]: I’m on the Hispanic University Group and we have Spanish lessons!
B: I feel like Cohen should go, because Cohen’s had issues with his Spanish since day one.
C: Hola! Como estas?
B: Are you any better than last week then?
C: Yes!
B: Say something then!
C: [speaks Spanish] I said ‘I’m Shakira, and I’m from Varanquia’.
B: That applies to zero situations I’m going to guess Laney?
L: No I mean…
B: Unless you know, your name is Shakira…
C: I did learn that from Shakira, I didn’t learn that in Spanish 1401.
L: Don’t you guys have a test coming up?
C: Yeah, we have a grammar test; so I’ve been using la gramática competente…
B: Look at the accent! I can’t..
L: And did you know that ‘c’, before doing Spanish, ‘c’ in proper Spanish is pronounced like ‘the’? Like ‘gra-the-as?’ [pronouncing gracias]
C: Kind of. I heard someone say ‘Bar-the-lona’ one time and I want to correct them and they were like, ‘No…’
L: No, its ‘Bar-the-lona!’ Yeah!
C: But no, we got to our tute on the first day, and the entire class was waiting outside and I was like ‘well, I’m going to stay in my class!’ We stay outside, waited outside for a really long time, we’re all there five minutes early and then suddenly it was like five minutes after the tute was meant to start. And we were like, ‘When is this lecture going to finish in there?’ So someone just kind of knocked on the door, and we’d missed like…
B: The first five minutes?
C: Yeah we’d missed like half of my class because they started early, and we were just waiting outside the door like idiots.
B: That happens even now! I’ve had that happen where we stand out front and…
L: No one does anything.
B: .. it looks like the door’s locked, and then it just takes one person to bunk the door and realise it’s actually unlocked, oooooof, maybe could have gone inside.
C: So it doesn’t get better and it doesn’t get easier. Awesome!
L: It really doesn’t. [giggles]
B: Ok so with this assessment- how long is it, what type of assessment is it? Can we help you in any way?
L: Yeah, we can… I can help you!
B: Blessed from an angel, she’s arrived here today! [laughs] Okay, so you’ve kind of got ready for it?
C: I mean it’s an online test so I know how to use the internet.
B: I mean, that’s a start if you know how to use the internet.
C: You know, if I get graded on how I visit the quiz page then I think I’m doing alright.
B: Just know your name.
L: You know, you can open Google Translate in the background…
B: Mmmmm, should we be advocating those type of tips?
C: Wait, is Google Translate useful?
L: No, it’s actual crap to be honest.
B: It’s pretty bad. So how’s college been this week?
C: College has been really good this week. A lot of things going on- so like, Prosh has been going on, Prosh Olympics… we had the Intercollege Hockey Carnival yesterday…
L: Who won?
C: It’s still going!
B: They just kept playing hockey for 24 hours [laughs]… they’re still hitting, hitting with sticks…
C: But no, we’ve training very hard for that. I copped a hockey ball in the leg- I didn’t even feel it I was in a bloodlust. Like, we had to win!
[all laugh]
B: See, this is the intercollegiate rivalry which has just emerged from you in the past couple of weeks!
C: Look, it is…
B: Between the fresher dance, and this sport, and everything – it’s all coming out.
L: You get indoctrinated really quickly.
C: You do, you do. I came here being like ‘I’m going to focus on my studies! I’m going to be a good student! I’m going to do what it takes!’ and then I’m here like ‘I want us to be the greatest, and I’m going to sacrifice my education if that’s what it takes… I just want to beat Tommy More at everything.’
B: Brainwaves into your head, doing as you’re told.
C: We took our dogs to the hockey carnival!
L: Naaaaaw!
B: Did they enjoy the outing?
C: They did. Well I mean, we took one of them, and he’s so well-trained that he barks when we cheer!
L: That’s so synchronised!
B: That’s amazing!
C: Every time we cheer for the hockey team he starts barking with us that’s like… that’s uniformity.
L: What breed of dog do you guys have?
C: I don’t know dog breeds – it’s just a cute one.
B: I mean that’s… every dog all dogs are cute!
L: Well, except like little ones…
B: Oooooh, this is a point of contention here!
L: Like tiny ones! I was chased by a chihuahua… and his owner didn’t do anything to stop..
C: Are you trying to te me but you can’t take a chihuahua in a fight?
L: I can’t! [laughs] I was like 10, 11 and the owner legitimately didn’t do anything. Because I was running and looking, and I couldn’t do anything… [laughs]
B: Pleeeeeaase heeeeelp!
L: And she was just smiling and… yeah, that’s why I say ever since that I don’t like small dogs.
B: Fair enough… that’s a fair enough justification. Anything else happening this week, or happened last week?
C: It’s multicultural week at St Catherine’s this week, and I’m devastated because going to miss the entire thing…
B: Because you’re down in Albany?
C: Because I’m down in Albany. But what’s happening is, in the Dining Hall they’re having a different cultural night every night, so like Mexican night… tonight is the kickoff for it, we’re having international students give speeches about where they come from and stuff! And I read one of the American speeches today, it was very good.
B: Very American?
C: It just kind of sledged us for the entire speech but it was warranted. I always make fun of how they say aluminium…
L + B [at same time, in an American accent] A-loo-mi-num!
L: That’s how I say it!
B: We were saying earlier that Laney went to a American primary school!
L: Yeah, from like kindergarten all the way to year 6! So yeah.
B: So you’re used to saying a-loo-mi-num.
L: In Year 4, I could recite all the Presidents from like Washington to Lincoln…
C: Oh wow.
L: …and like the years of office that they were in office…
B: There you go!
L: … and I knew, I knew all the state birds and all the state capitals and now… I don’t. [laughs]
B: Love that… that information has probably been removed for something that deserves the spot!
L: Yeah exactly!
B Harry Potter trivia… I wouldn’t be able to name all of our Prime Ministers from go to whoa. I don’t think I could do all of them… I could do the recent ones…
L: Rudd-Gillard-Rudd…
B: Basically!
C: They pretty much look exactly the same.
B: That’s true… mostly old white men a lot of the time. Okay, so international dinner, international multicultural week!
C: Multicultural week! So they’re having lots of games and activities and stuff; again I’m devastated because but I’m going to be missing it. But you gotta do what you gotta do.
B: You gotta go back to your homeland sometimes. Cohen returns to his homeland this week
L: Oh! So have you heard about the new class rep system?
B: Yeah that’s something that we were discussing earlier…
C: What are class reps? Are they like fresher reps?
L: No, so the guild is rolling out this new, trialling this new thing where they have each first year unit – I think, mostly- they have someone that the students can go to, like a peer that they can go to with problems and then he raises it up with the tutor or the unit coordinator. So like it’s meant to help people who don’t really have any confidence or don’t want to go and talk to the unit coordinator.
B: So like, for example, if you take your Spanish unit- if you nominated as class rep you would be the representative for everyone else. They would come to you and say ‘Hey Cohen, I’ve got an issue with something- can you escalate it for me?’
L: Pelican did a review of the class rep system, and I think it summed it up pretty well.
B: For anyone interested at home, if you go onto the Pelican website you can read that article about the class rep system!
C: Well like I do POLS, like the politics unit…
L: Liberal Democratic State?
C: Yeah!
B: I think everyone did that unit as a first year unit… I did that unit in first year…
L: It’s sooo much better now though!
C: I think the two fresher… what are they called? Class reps did a little spiel before the lecture today.
B: Um um um um.. Assessments coming up. How’s your planning going for those? Is there planning going on, or?
C: Yeah, I’ve got a lot of assessments coming up actually! I planned yesterday. What I did I was- like, I don’t know when anything is, I’m going in blind- so I wrote them up on my planner and I was like [worried voice] ‘There’s so much sooner than I thought they were…’
B: You’re like it’s due in week 4 and then yet…
C: I have two online quizzes due this week…
L: What for?
C: Law and Society and for Spanish. I did not know I had the Spanish one. I didn’t know that was a thing until yesterday and I thought the Law and Society one was due in like a month. BUT NOPE, ITS DUE NEXT WEEK.
B: What advice can we give you re: assignments?
L: Ok so assignments… if you know that you’re not going to finish it by 5 p.m. or something… I think it’s like 10% per 24 hour block… one thing you can do is, maybe, just say that LMS wasn’t working….
B [shocked]: Laney, this is a completely unorthodox method!
L: I’ve used it twice, three times now… you just…
B: We do not condone this though. [laughs]
L: No, no we don’t! [laughs]
C: I think you might have ruined that for the rest of us because our lecturer, our LAWS lecturer was standing at the front talking to us and she said [stern voice] ‘Excuses I do not accept: LMS isn’t working!’
B: Well shit. See you shouldn’t listen to these completely unorthodox methods and you should study!
L: And you should get all your assignments done on time
C: On time, 3 days in advance…
B: At minimum. Have them all done ready to go, but… sometimes life just isn’t like that.
C: Do you find that during your first year I don’t know if it’s just carried into later years but people in your units come up to you and say ‘How are you doing with the essay?’ And so you say ‘Yeah good!’ And then you close your door and say ‘Did we have a freaking essay?’
B + L [laugh]: Yes!
L: Or you pretend that ‘Yeah yeah, I’m doing well!’ and then you can get information out of them about what have they been up to, so ‘What have you done with this question? Oh, I can use this method’. And some people are really keen to tell you what they’ve done because they want to assert dominance or whatever, and then…
C: Yes yes, tell me more.
B: To draw in the Harry Potter theme, that’s such a Slytherin move!
L: I am in Slytherin! You know, I’ve actually done the Pottermore quiz about 3 times and I always fall into Slytherin. When I consciously tried to manipulate the results, I still got into Slytherin. I did all the BuzzFeed quizzes and stupid ones, and I still gets sorted into Slytherin.
B: See I did the Pottermore quiz and I always, always get Hufflepuff, regardless of what I do! And that really shows in my response to that question; I was like ‘No you must be absolutely loyal! And you must absolutely, you can’t dupe people! You but I do everything honestly!’ Have you done the Pottermore quiz?
C: [sarcastic] Have I done Pottermore quiz? I was the first to do the Pottermore quiz when it came out.
B: What is your house then?
C: I’m a Ravenclaw.
L: I’ve realised that whenever people come to sign up, and they haven’t done the Pottermore quiz, we ask them ‘What house would you like to be in?’ and everyone goes Ravenclaw. Because no-one wants to go Slytherin because of the negative connotations, which like #notallslytherins….
B: The values of Slytherin are loyalty, intelligence, cunningness, which can be positive! So they don’t want to say Gryffindor, because that’s too mainstream…
L: And then Hufflepuff, sometimes they’re like ‘I’m nice…’ Like, you know what I mean?
B [shocked]: Hufflepuffs are more than that though!
C: Hufflepuffs are next to the kitchens in the book as well, so that is the most fun.
B: Right? Right. Anything else further that we want to talk about because I think we’re almost out of time… does Laney have any advice about clubs…
L: Yes! I heard what you said about ‘I’m willing to sacrifice my education!’ You are not willing to sacrifice your education. I did part-time uni last year just to cope with everything- stupidest thing, because now I just have two units to do and I have to stay an extra semester. And graduating mid year just screws up your life! It really does, because if, for example, I wanted to do the JD [Juris Doctor, postgrad Law] or anything like that I’d have to wait a year…
B: Or wait 6 months.
L: It sucks. You want to really just get your stuff done and prioritise is the biggest thing.
C: Of course.
B: Laney has done everything and the kitchen sink at UWA…
L: Oh my god. Semester 1 last year was full time uni, how many freaking committees, I played soccer for Nedlands Football Club as well so that, and then, like, had the bright idea to start another club and it’s just like ‘Oh it’s too much!That’s just stupid levels of too much!’ Don’t go there!
B: I guess be careful, prioritise your own studies and your own mental health so that you feel alright with everything and do alright with everything.
L: Because you need to keep that WAM up and that GPA up.
C: It’s good that there are facilities at college to accommodate for that.
L: Yeah. And I think you’re lucky to be at college so you have that support system.
C: Definitely.
B: And you can rely on your neighbours, and I’m they have pastoral care and stuff there too…
C: And we’re doing all the same units too, so if we don’t understand stuff we can just…
B: Knock on the room next door.
C: Literally.
L: Oh yeah! Like, social stuff- you should at least go to one of the EMAS parties, like Miami or Ibiza…
B: Mmmm, that’s a point! EMAS is one of the big- so the…
L+ B [synchronised] Electronic Music Appreciation Society!
B: They hold these really big events every semester, where they’re basically big doof doof festival parties…
C + L: Doof doof? [laugh]
B: No! They’re always done so well…
L: They’re really professional! And they run everything on time, its great.
B: There’s always like Red Frogs, police are always there, everything’s really safe. Like, obviously people go there and have a good time but nothing gets super out of hand. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it’s a uni event!
L: Yeah, and you don’t really get any complaints I suppose.
B: Nup. So that’s coming up in a couple of weeks isn’t it?
L: Yeah, I think Miami’s in April, so week 7 or 8 or something…
C: Awesome.
B: So get some college friends together and go to that. I feel like it’s a rite of passage for most people at uni.
L: Yeah, it is! You have to at least go to one EMAS thing, at least one.
B: Maybe we’ll have their president on next episode when they hear about it!
L: They also hold DJ-ing lessons, if you’re interested…
C: Oh come on. That’s amazing.
B: Alright, i think that just about does us to be honest! Thankyou so much Laney for coming in with us.
L: Thankyou so much for having me!
B: No thanks to Cohen for being ten minutes late…
L: No, its fine…
C: It was completely my fault, just going to put it out there [laughs].
B: All the best for the Harry Potter Club!
L: Thankyou!
B: What are we going to do for our outro this week?
C: Oh, it needs to be something Harry Potter themed.
L: Maybe I hum and you sing along…?
[L hums Harry Potter theme music, C sings over the top]
C: Thaaaanks for keeeeeping it freeeeeeeesh….
[all laugh]
B: Well I’m Bridget…
C: I’m Cohen…
L: I’m Laney…
B: And thankyou for listening to this week’s episode of Better Late than Fresher. Bye!