Thursday afternoon and Friday we spent our time at Macquarie University, northwest of Sydney center. Macquarie is a beautiful, easily walkable, and actual quite compact feeling campus. There's a good bit of construction going on at the moment, as they are building a hospital and a new, fully automated library on campus. Students start arriving on campus this weekend (last weekend in July), so the campus was full of anticipatory energy, though not yet full of students.  We first took a quick drive around campus to have a look at the parimeters and get an idea of the actual size. For a uni with 40,000 students, Macquarie does not have the sprawling huge feeling you would expect.  Because so many students commute (very common in Australia), the campus is able to remain compact ... with about 5,000 beds spread over three main housing areas on campus. It's maybe a 20 minute walk end to end.

At the center of campus is U@MQ, the student union, where tons of activities for all students take place. You can see from the photos here just how green campus is, with really lovely walk ways and facilities, and a bit of construction too.

For academics, Macquarie is vast. Strengths that were mentioned in our conversations included psychology, marine biology, environmental science, business, and design, among others. Aside from the standard academics, Macquarie has three amazing options for students: semester long internships (including in the sciences, with hands-on lab experience!!), a study abroad certificate, and their global leadership certificate. I won't go into details here ,but let me just tell you, we were all highly impressed with the programs their study abroad office has developed and maintains!

So, as a student, reasons I would choose Macquarie include: easy access to Sydney, a truly awesome city; amazing academic options with numerous opportunities to include additional programs that would really standout on my resume; really lively, highly internationalized campus; shopping mall within an easy walking distance from campus. Oh--and I forgot to mention this earlier, the new train which can take you into the city in 30 minutes, regardless of the time of day! Right now, there's one train change, but once the new lne construction is finished, you will be able to take the Macquarie Uni line straight into the city! And, Macquarie is the only Uni in Sydney with its own train stop!

As an advisor, I'm additionally impressed with Macquarie for: high level of personalized service offered in the study abroad office -- Alicia is the staff member assigned to watch over CIS students! Very safe campus, in a great suburb of Sydney; close enough to the city to have full access, but not located in the middle of everything. Great support, academic, and athletic services. Robust student union providing students countless opportunities to really be engaged and active on campus.