Yasmin

Psychology BSc (Hons)

Swinburne University of Technology

I truly believe that anyone who is considering doing a year or semester abroad should just do it! It was an amazing opportunity for me to make lifelong friends, travel, whilst simultaneously studying, which helped me feel more confident coming into my final year at Surrey.

My advice for anyone who would like to attend Swinburne is to go to all the orientation events, this is where you will make the most friends at university who are also doing an exchange, so you have people who know what you are going through.

I found accommodation through Swinburne, they gave advice on where to get accommodation, so I chose to be in Unilodge in the CBD. I preferred to be in the CBD, which is a few train stops away from campus, just so I was better able to explore. I really recommend Unilodge as the host of events throughout the week so you can meet other international students.

As previously mentioned, I travelled a lot while I was on my summer holidays. I travelled up the east coast by bus, stopping at places like Sydney, Brisbane, Noosa, all the way up to Cairns. My favourite might have been Melbourne’s rival Sydney, I loved Bondi beach!

At the university I had the opportunity to choose topics I had never studied before like Forensics and Trauma, which I found super interesting. The teaching style is fairly different, the lectures are similar, but for each lecture there is a tutorial, which was just going over the lecture in more depth and in smaller groups, which was really helpful. The assessments are also very different, whilst they do have typical exams and essays/reports, they also assess you using things like journals, infographics, and weekly diary entries for assessments.

The holiday breaks were at different times to England, of course having seasons at different times of year. Each semester is 12 weeks, with a month period for exams. The summer holidays start at the end of November and end at the start of March, which is when I travelled the east coast. There is also a mid-semester break in both semesters, which is just a week.

Lastly, if you choose to go to Melbourne, my top 5 things you need to do/try is:

• Yo-chi
• Royal Botanical Gardens
• Asian Beer Cafe
• Great Ocean Road
• Phillip Island (to see the penguins)

I had the most amazing, life changing experience studying abroad in Melbourne. I made lifelong friends, solo travelled around Australia and overall had the best year I’ve ever had!