Going Places - Travelling Smarter

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2016:

170 hours

One year of full-time undergraduate studies in any discipline/faculty

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

Travel is an ambition for many cosmopolitan-minded students, either as part of a study program/exchange or as an independent project. Aimed to enhance any travel experiences, the Going Places – Travelling Smarter subject provides interdisciplinary methods to observe and interpret new environments, identify positive educational, professional and personal opportunities, and report and record reflections and experiences before, during and after travelling. Lectures from diverse disciplinary areas will present fundamental precepts relating to travel, such as cosmopolitanism, cognitive benefits of travelling, stereotyping, global and developing economies, environmental concerns, identity and alterity. Through regular preparatory research and participation in tutorials, students will develop expertise in a particular region and learn more about the rest of the world from other students in themed modules, covering subjects such as architecture, urban and rural environments, conflict, tourism, language and communication, economics, geography, gastronomy, music and creative arts. This expertise will be demonstrated through oral participation in tutorials and in online blog posts. An emphasis on ethnographic methods for negotiating intercultural encounters and new technologies for disseminating information on travelling will assist students from all faculties and disciplines to improve their ability to engage with their own and others’ mobility and deepen understanding of what it means to be a global citizen. Students will test their ethnographic skills through a collaborative research-mapping project focusing on new ways of engaging with familiar places (ie an environmental analysis of the Docklands, or multiple histories - indigenous, settler, migrant - of Port Phillip Bay). The final individual research/case-study project will draw together the broad disciplinary approaches, including ethnography, geography, communication, mapping, tourism, economics and the arts, in a more distant or unfamiliar place-based case-study (city, region, sacred site, monument, factory, etc) to expose the interconnectedness of nature and culture, business and science, people and politics, in building identity and understanding through travel and technology.

This subject aims to enable students to:

1. use online technologies for preparatory research, concurrent training modules and in-country communication (ie setting up blog site for use on exchange, online language courses, Google Earth for mapping)
2. identify the best travel resources for their purposes
3. engage with discourses around different ways of travelling – culinary, sporting, volunteering, walking, scientific, professional, etc.
4. develop strategies for mapping spaces of travel – geographical, architectural, historical, cultural, social, scientific, medical, linguistic etc.
5. negotiate culture shock and other potentially difficult encounters
6. explore intercultural, environmental, political and economic issues associated with travelling
7. examine tourism development strategies and their impact on cultures and economies
8. produce texts and images that demonstrate the multiple angles for understanding and recounting travel experiences

• Individual participation in tutorials demonstrating regional expertise (oral presentations = 750 words) ongoing throughout semester [20%]
• Blogs throughout semester (750 words) [20%]
• Research-Mapping collaborative project (500 words per participant) mid semester [20%]
• Research-Case-Study (2000 words) during the exam period [40%]

This subject has the following hurdle requirements:

• Regular participation in tutorials is required with a minimum of 75% attendance.
• All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 10% per day and in-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked.

Reading pack to be provided

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. identify interdisciplinary methods necessary to prepare for travel experiences
2. analyse dominant factors influencing travel experiences in both general and particular contexts
3. develop critical thinking around intercultural, environmental, political and economic issues associated with travelling in both general and particular contexts
4. communicate research effectively on specialised topics and areas through oral presentation
5. generate texts and images that demonstrate understanding of the key issues associated with travelling, including culture shock, conflict and tourism
6. apply analytical methods relating to travel appropriately to both familiar and foreign case studies