Do Australian have cheerleaders like the Americans do?
As previously mentioned, cheer-leading is not the same in Australia as in America. None of our footy codes (Rugby, Aussie Rules, Soccer et al) has cheerleaders. Cheer-leading is a separate sport, and you won't find any cheer-leading squads at any of our schools. It's simply not part of our curriculum. To go to "college" you need to have passed (at least) Year 12. But even having passed Year 12 is no guarantee that you'll get into our tertiary education system. We simply don't have enough vacancies in our tertiary education system so that everyone that applies is accepted. What quite a few people do is attend our TAFE (Tertiary & Further Education) or similar "school", and then start university in the second or third year. Very similar (in principle) to the Community College system in America. I presume that in two years' time you are emigrating here with your family. Because simply stating that at 16 you plan on moving to Australia won't cut the mustard with our Immigration Department. You can (of course) apply to come out here to study, but that's a whole different process. I'd suggest you check out our immigration website and get the facts.
Why don't universities offer lockers for students like high schools do?
Lockers?First, in high school, many students live a long way from the high school and therefore they can Not go home during the school day to get materials.Second, at MIT, when I was a student, I had a Locker in the athletic center. I kept all of the special clothing I needed for exercise classes, soccer, intramural sports, and when I was on the men’s ice hockey team, my hockey equipment.Also, my dormitory was located on campus, and the class schedules are dispersed through out the day, so it was easy to return to my dorm for materials. As a graduate student, I had an Office, and similarly, my college related materials were kept in my office (except for my sports related materials, which were in my locker at the athletic center.)
Why don't universities ever offer sales on tuition?
Because their customer is not the student. Their customer is the US Congress. Tuition prices are driven almost exclusively by the willingness of the government and banks to loan huge amounts on behalf of the students. So it's not just that the product is inelastic because everyone thinks they need your degree--it's that it's inelastic because most students don't know and don't care how much it costs. Because of student loans and grants, the average university could double its prices and there'd still be a line to get in, because it's not the students directly paying the bills--it's the government first, their parents second, and the students in some tertiary metaphor. It's like gas prices--everyone complains when it goes up ten cents per gallon, but no one really acts on those complaints and idle threats until it goes up $3/gallon. So if your local college started charging $100,000 a year, people would protest in the street, they'd talk about how they have to drop out of school, but in the end they know that the government would still sign the check, and if it got really out of hand, the government would swoop in and "forgive" the student loans a few years later.
Do colleges have lockers?
At my college the only lockers were in the gym. You take fewer classes each day in college than you do in high school so you usually take a backpack to class.
How big are the average middle school lockers?
They can go from 9-12 inch's wide and most are two feet tall.From front to the back is about 1 and a half feet. You could fit about 4 textbooks and like 3 binders. The rest can only be used well if you have a shelf. Also, I advice getting a small whiteboard for the door of your locker for things you need to remember like important assignments or to remember promises you gave to friends for after school. =D
Are there countries that have coed locker rooms?
Yes of course. We have gender mixed locker rooms in our public saunas. Which is not a big deal since everyone is going to see each other naked anyway in the sauna area. The toilet rooms there are gender separated for some illogical reason though.Sauna in the Dutch language area - WikipediaAny locker rooms that are not in a public sauna (like in a gym, public swimming pool, school, and work places) are generally not mixed gender, but almost always gender separated. Though I had a mixed locker room in my primary school as have my daughters now. Public swimming pools sometimes even have cubicles for changing even though the locker rooms are gender separated already.
Why has Australia never had a school shooting even though guns are available in the country?
There’s probably a few reasons:Since the Port Arthur Massacre of 1996 (and the Monash University shooting, as Kelly cites as well), there have been exceptionally tight gun laws throughout the country. Essentially, you need to go through a thorough background check, be a legal resident of the state you’re applying from, and store a gun securely, before you pay for the licence. If you pass those tests, you’re then able to buy one gun - and there are restrictions on the type, capacity and so on. Want another gun? Repeat the above steps. We also don’t have the different sorts of licences that exist in America, such as “concealed carry” and the like. Your gun lives in a secure safe/locker at home, apart from when you’re using it for the purposes you’ve requested it for.We have substantially fewer people in Australia than there are in America. I’d like to think that means it’s harder for people to “fall through the cracks” if they’re identified as being potential mass shooters. Hard to say.Our healthcare system - and this includes mental health - won’t bankrupt you if you need treatment. If I need psychological treatment, I can go to my local GP (family doctor) and get what’s called a “Mental Health Care Plan”. That entitles me to ten sessions with a psychologist paid (in substantial part, sometimes even entirely) for by our Medicare system. If I need more trips to the psychologist, back I go to the GP for another such plan.We don’t have a tradition of people forming “militias” and taking to the hills to defend the Constitution, while arming themselves to the teeth and conducting paramilitary drills. I’m not saying there’s a complete correlation between people doing that in the States and school shootings in the same country, but a number of recent massacres are alleged to have been perpetrated by people linked to such groups.We don’t have a “constitutional right to bear arms” with all that that entails. I’m not going to weigh in on the debate about what the second amendment means or doesn’t mean, but in a society where it doesn’t exist, you’re a lot less likely to have a lot of people exercising that right.
Does College have lockers?
In the athletic and recreation facilities, yes, and some campuses have coin lockers available in the student union. Mostly, though, you'll be carrying your books in your backpack and you'll probably live on campus (for the first two years, at least) so you don't need a locker. Plus, college campuses are MUCH bigger than most high school campuses (we're talking acres versus feet), so a locker would be pointless and time consuming.