RAINY DAY AT MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY

The University of Melbourne, my alma mater, is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1853 and is thus the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria. The main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb just north of the Melbourne CBD.

It is colloquially known as a sandstone university (see photos of the buildings!) and has one of the largest financial endowments of any Australian university, standing at $1.173 billion as of 2010. The University of Melbourne consistently ranks among the best universities in Australia and the world. The university has been placed top in Australia, 37th in the world by the Times Higher Education 2011-2012 rankings of the world’s top 400 universities, and 31st in the world by QS 2011-2012 ranking.

In Australia, the University of Melbourne is the second largest research organisation after the CSIRO. In 2010, it spent $767.5m on research and has consistently ranked first or second on the major national research indicators which are used by the Australian Government to allocate public funds for research and training infrastructure. The university has more than 49,000 students, who are supported by just over 7,300 staff members.

This post is part of Kim's Water World Wednesday meme,
and also part of Susan's Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of Nature Footsteps Waters meme.