Hello! I’m Sadie, in my third year of an MSci in Marine Biology. For my semester abroad last year I had the opportunity to study at Deakin University- based in Geelong, Victoria – and let me just say I had the most amazing, life changing experience. The aim of this blog post is really to explain the process I had to go through before actually arriving in my host university, to describe the time and experience I had there and, to highlight some bits of information/advice I wish I had heard before I left.
Before I delve into this (because trust me, there is a LOT to say…) I just thought I’d mention that Deakin was not my first choice! When applying to the semester abroad I worried so much about where I was going and if I was going to get my first option – in hindsight this was an unnecessary worry. My exchange coordinator and the study abroad team were amazing at providing alternative options and making sure I would be studying somewhere a) I wanted to live and b) with a strong department relevant to my degree. Fundamentally, wherever you go has a world of opportunity within it – friends to be made, sights to be seen, professors to be met, areas to be travelled and explored – so don’t stress too much in the early days of the application process. Second piece of advice I would give, whilst on the topic is: do not be afraid to send emails to both your exchange coordinator and the study abroad team, asking questions when sorting out the endless amounts of paperwork you have to submit. Organising the correct documents like my visa, travel insurance and academic transcript was both daunting and confusing, so I advise you stay in contact with the people there to help! My host university study abroad team were also amazing, helping me an organise which documents they required on their end and advising me on the process of enrolling as an exchange student. If you stay on top of this stuff, your departure will much more smooth and calm – necessary when you have the added pressure of leaving the country and fitting into a new life!
When doing an exchange semester in Australia, one thing I wish I was informed about was the Turin grant, and how this only runs from the start of the UK academic year in September. This meant I missed out on some funding for the first two months – which did make it difficult. However, with an Australian student visa you are able to work, at a maximum of 24 hours a week. I landed myself a job in a really cute cafe/bar right on the waterfront in the city Geelong (check out the amazing sunset views I had from work!!) which was brilliant. It was a great way to just hang out with people my age, students or not, and make some extra money. It also exposed me to a new bubble outside of the university – I would sometimes get to work early for a swim and on my lunch breaks, walk alongside the seafront!
The experience I had at Deakin itself was fabulous. The campus was massive, with a large athletics track and gym, library and canteen. Every Wednesday they offered free breakfast and twice a month they ran “Deakin pantry” where, for FREE, you could get tins of food, fresh fruit and veg, snacks, pasta, rice, etc. (basically just a bunch of free food for your cupboards – a uni students heaven). What I also loved about Deakin was the flexibility in module choice I had. I was able to expand my horizons taking classes in environmental politics and world religions. Something else I loved was the smaller, more intimate class sizes (probably because Deakin have 4 campuses which the students are dispersed over). This meant I quickly made friends and also had a greater opportunity to get to know my professors, which created a really friendly, relaxed atmosphere. It was refreshing to have a quieter uni life, and my grades thanked me for it too! While I was there I had lab sessions in the Queenscliff Marine Science Centre, closely partnered with Victorian Fisheries Authority. I learnt how to test water quality of the effluent of an aquaculture farm and techniques in bioremediation and bacterial filtration. I also had the chance to visit two commercial aquaculture facilities in Victoria, an abalone farm and a barramundi farm (see photos). We were taken through the hatcheries, nurseries and got an in depth tour of how these places run – really interesting to see the commercial and science aspects of these industries tied together.
In my spare time, my housemates (one of which came with me from Southampton uni to study!) and I would go to Torquay beach to swim before or after our lectures. We spent lots of time exploring this part of the country – the beginning of Australia’s Great Ocean Road – taking our hammocks to camp in the bush and cook dinner over a campfire. Australia is perfect if you like camping and hiking – they make it so easy with lots of free campsites that even have gas stoves! Talking about housemates; I decided not to stay in the residential halls on campus. Me and my friend found a spare room on the website flatmates.au, a site the university had suggested we look at to find accommodation, and ended up living with our new friend Ella! She had a gorgeous black cat Evie, and was nice enough to show us all the local spots in Geelong as well as taking us back to her family home in (as she called it) cowboy-central Wangaratta – a small Aussie town in Victoria. I found that it was nice to have my own space outside of halls, with a little garden and living room. I was worried I would miss out on meeting people but it worked out perfectly in the end.
I spent my weekends getting the train into Melbourne – about an hour journey – experiencing the city’s truly underground, grassroots electronic music scene to its fullest. Fun fact – Australians listen to the most electronic dance music as a population, meaning the nightlife is cream of the crop -good sounds! I met the most interesting, fun people through going these events and I would say this is the aspect of living abroad that I enjoyed the most.
Finally, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mention some of the amazing trips I went on whilst I was in Australia. Me and my friend spent a week driving up the east coast of New South Wales to Sydney, hammocking and staying with friends along the way. We saw mountains, waterfalls, amazing beaches with the most insane surf, and even spent the day in Sydney Library to do some on-the-road university work. We flew to Cairns nearer the end of the trimester, spending a couple of days exploring Daintree Rainforest, the oldest tropical rainforest on the planet, and the Great Barrier Reef. We lived on a boat for 3 days, scuba diving and lounging in the sun. We even got the chance to do a fluoro-dive, spending most of the night dive on our knees with UV torches looking at all the fluorescent shrimp, coral and sponges that were attached to the reef. My real highlight was the trip we took to New Zealand, just 4 hours and a Ā£75 return flight away. We spent almost a month road tripping, hiking, swimming, cooking food in random places where your definitely not allowed a gas stove, and knocking on locals doors to ask them to fill up our water canisters. We saw glaciers, REAL mountains (think lord of the rings… but just everywhere), glacial lakes and of course the famous Kiwi and KÄkÄ birds.
From the experience as a whole, I was left in awe of how differently life has evolved in the southern hemisphere than it has up here in Europe. As a marine biology student and someone with a great interest in the natural world, this experience of studying and living abroad in Australia was something I will never take for granted. Plus, spending time studying at a different university with different people and structures and just generally a different environment (one with lots of sunshine) was really beneficial for my mental health. If there is one things humans love it’s change – it’s excitement and growth, its opportunity and spontaneity, it genuinely changes your outlook on life and shows you parts of the world and yourself that you didn’t know existed. I would recommend anyone to do a semester abroad as you just don’t know what is waiting for you when you get there – and that’s the fun of it.