Studying abroad has always been an idea that appealed to me, and was a considerable reason why I applied to study in Southampton in the first place. For numerous reasons, my first semester of first year wasn’t a very enjoyable experience and therefore when one of the Humanities Abroad staff members mentioned at the end of one of my lectures that there would be a talk about going on a semester abroad in second year I was keen to learn more. The talk confirmed what I already knew; that I was going to apply to study abroad. The next question was where. I knew that I wanted to go to an English Speaking country – studying abroad is already such a huge adjustment, I knew that, for me, going to a country which spoke a different language was going to be far too scary! This left me with the US, Australia and Canada. Ultimately I applied to the University of Wisconsin in the US, as I was born in the States and have always been interested in studying there, and Adelaide, as who wouldn’t want to study in Australia! Choosing Adelaide was slightly tactical, at the time I would have preferred to go to Sydney (although with hindsight I realise that Adelaide was perfect for me) however we were told that places for Sydney were extremely limited, and I knew it would reduce my chances of going away at all if I applied there, so Adelaide it was!
I spent my Christmas holiday researching both the universities and finding out details I could include in my application to prove to the Study Abroad people that I had looked into where I wanted to go and knew that they were right for me, and I for them. I included details such as specific modules and lecturers at the universities who I was interested in learning more about, as well as what the universities specialised in and why this interested me personally. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, on the 26th February I received an email from Humanities Abroad letting me know that my application to Adelaide had been forwarded to the International Office for final decisions. A week later, on the 4th March, while sat in a 5pm politics lecture, I found out that my application was successful; I was going to Australia!!!
After a few days of uncontainable excitement, telling everyone who so much as looked at me that I was going to live in Australia for five months, reality began to set in. Semester in Australia started in July, that only gave me a few months to prepare! Where would I live? What modules would I do? What flights would I take? When would I come home? Panic also set in, it suddenly all felt so real. What if I didn’t like it? Adelaide is 10,000 miles from the UK, I couldn’t just come home for a weekend if I wanted. This lasted for a few days until research into accommodation and flights calmed my nerves. I wouldn’t be homeless when I arrived, rather, I decided, I would live in a student accommodation called Urbanest. Although it was expensive (a common theme in Australia I would later discover) it was close to university and the city centre, and was full of fellow exchange students who were in the same position as me. Here, a word of advice for anyone applying to Adelaide university who wants to live in Urbanest. As previously mentioned, I panicked about where I would live, and therefore rushed into booking my accommodation online. Although this worked out fine, it turns out that, upon their acceptance of you, the University of Adelaide send an application form for urbanest along with their acceptance forms. If you apply using this form rent is cheaper, contracts for the rooms are shorter and you are provided with basic stuff for your room, such as a duvet, pillows and all the necessary linen. I had to buy all mine so this would have been a lot less hassle and also a lot cheaper!
In the build up to leaving to go abroad, I had to attend a number of talks and complete a series of documents for the Study Abroad team. This included a Risk Assessment, a Learning Agreement and a travel insurance certificate (the University of Southampton provide this free for all students and staff, however it is only very basic cover). The compulsory talks provided by the Humanities Abroad team made filling all these in very straight forward, especially the Risk Assessment form, which could be confusing without some guidance on what kind of information should be included, so if your department offers talks such as these I would definitely recommend going to them, and who knows, you may meet someone who is going to the same place as you!
Happy reading,
Molly x