Sydney University does a good line in graffiti. They even have a famous and well signposted graffiti tunnel, to highlight this particular academic specialty.
But it's not the whole story. Sydney Uni is indeed Australia's oldest
University, and is within Australia considered a solid and prestigious
institution. How well regarded is it by world standards? Well, it is,
sort of. According to the Times Higher Education World University Reputation Rankings for 2014, it's right up there in the 61-70 band, down a bit from 49th last year, and sadly a bit behind Melbourne University and the Australian National University in Canberra. (Harvard University comes in at No.1 again, and I can't resist mentioning Imperial College London still being up there at No.13)
Sydney Uni does have a lovely old campus, well located and with fine buildings, old and new. It has got a beautiful feel to it, especially on perfect blue sky days like today. It's got an excellent outreach programme, with all kinds of fabulous talks and other events which the public are invited to attend. And, if you believe the local media at least, it does churn out lots of useful research results, as well as lots of doctors, engineers, lawyers etc.
Like most Australian tertiary education institutions, it's got awfully interested in recent years in the education business, as opposed perhaps to the business of educating people, and the campus is full of high fee paying overseas students. I watched a little post-graduating ceremony photo shoot, where the group got their instructions on the throwing-your-mortar-boards-into-the-air routine, watched by their proud parents, over from China.
Some things haven't changed though since my student days. Still seems to be lots of politics, lots of meetings, lots of notices and graffiti. Maybe the overseas students aren't pulling their weight in that department, but maybe, just maybe, they'll learn something from it, and their time here will have been worthwhile.
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