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Home >> Information for future students >> Intern. Exchange >> 2005 Exchange

2005 International Exchange

Outbound UNSW Students

The Entrance to Leoben University, Austria

University of Leoben, Austria
- Melanie's story

Glückauf…A traditional Austrian miner’s greeting, and appropriately the greeting on the main doors of the old building of the Mining, Metallurgy and Materials Montanuniversität Leoben. I am spending one semester here at the mining school in Austria which has been running since 1849. This is an excellent opportunity to study the mining culture of a country whose main mining focus is on Talc and Salt and other materials that are not so common in Australia’s vast mines.

The timing of European semesters are different to Australia. Their winter semester goes from October until February. As a result of this I wasn’t able to do my required vacation work over the Australian summer. I started to look for work over the three months break I had before I left.

The Main Pit at Tom Price, WA

With good timing and valuable contacts made between the UNSW mining school and the industry I was able to secure a period of industrial training at Pilbara Iron’s Tom Price Mine in Western Australia.

Tom Price is a large open pit Iron Ore operation. I worked in the Mine Operations department and more specifically with the drill and blast engineer. Through this I learned a great deal about the design of open pit blast patterns as well as the what is required in the engineering side of running a large scale mining operation. I had the opportunity to spend a few weeks out with the blast crew so I could see the work I had been doing being put into practice.

The mining school at Leoben is very involved with industry, through project work and other events. I visited an old marble quarry where the university had been asked to help with the design of a continuation of the mine to form an underground operation. Though it was smaller than all other mines I had seen, it still used the same methods and type of equipment that can be seen throughout Australia.

The university also had, a few weeks ago, a series of guest lectures by industry representatives, with a meet and greet session afterwards.

Marble Quarry near Leoben

Canucks ice hockey field

University of Bristish Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, Canada - Amy's story

It is time for another update on my time in Canada. I have been to see the Canucks (the Vancouver Ice hockey team) and they won both the games that I watched.

On the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend a bunch of us (Jon, Gem, Jen and me) hired a car and went touring around Vancouver Island. We walked through old forests, visited the Butchant Gardens (mining context: part of the gardens used to be an old quarry), went to a surf beach (definitely didn’t swim though, way too cold), went whale watching, visited hot springs and went kayaking. Later that week we went and saw ‘The Killers’, watched some more ice hockey the women’s and men’s University Varsity teams. The women’s rugby club had a fundraiser for a big rugby tournament at the Buffalo Club that had a mechanical bull, which was a heap of fun. We also had a huge party for Halloween, which was awesome, and was my first proper Halloween.The last month has been midterm time with a bit of extra work, so apart from going out and generally having a good time I have also been busy with studying for the midterms. Aaaghgh, still have a couple more to come.

More stuff for my mining friends, I went on the 3^rd year field trip to Vancouver Island, (my third trip to the island), I visited an underground board and pillar mine and an underground open stoping mine.

Granville Island

Butchant gardens

Whistler

Amy and her rugby friends at Halloween

The beginning of the ski season has arrived and I have taken advantage of the snow.

I spent last weekend at Whistler with some of my rugby friends, one of the girls on the team has a sweet lodge and it was sooo much fun skiing, even though I fell like 40 or 50 times. Then on Thursday we went skiing on Grouse Mt, which is one of the closest mountains to Vancouver, they were having a special free day of skiing.

Inbound to UNSW

Leaving us at the end after spending a semester at UNSW are Christine and Florian. Before returning hone to the Univeristy of Leoben they are intending on doing a bit of sight-seeing taking in Ayers Rock and the Great Barrier Reef.

The total scorecard in 2005 for UNSW mining students on International Exchange was to:

University of Bristish Columbia (UBC): Canada: two students
Queen's University, Canada: two students
University of Leoben: one student

And inbound students to UNSW in 2005 were from:

University of Leoben: two students

For 2006, we welcome students from the following universities who have so far applied to study at UNSW:

Queen's University, Canada: two students
McGill: one student

P. Hagan
27/11/05

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