Tertiary and Continuing Studying abroad

[22 others]

Oh rearry Will you be able to pick up any Cantonese while you're there? What are you studying if you don't mind me asking?

Finance and Economics. Yeah its tempting because both the gov and my uni hand out an extra $1000 for those who study an Asian language course in prep for exchange.

 

[sabre_ac]

Why's that?

Genuinely curious, must have a good story or two to share from friends/family.

Mainly stories I have heard or seen. From a guys perspective its living the dream and ticks all the boxes.

Hook up with girls way out of your league...Check
Absolute control over your life..Check
Clean slate to be or do what you always wanted..Check
Living in real cities..Check (Melbourne is amazing but ultimately not in the same league as Paris/London/New York etc)

Never heard anyone say they regretted it, the biggest danger is you decide not to return.

From a personal experience I did my stint abroad in my mid 20's and it was great and I learnt allot. Now if I did that at 19 or 21, that development would have come 5 years earlier and I could still do it all again in my mid 20's.

 

[manboob]

From a personal experience I did my stint abroad in my mid 20's and it was great and I learnt allot. Now if I did that at 19 or 21, that development would have come 5 years earlier and I could still do it all again in my mid 20's.

+1 on the doing it as early as possible.

 

[sabre_ac]

Yeah was leaning towards going for a year, I've heard a lot of people regretting going for just the one semester. Its a pretty huge commitment though. Im probably going to head over to either Hong Kong for a year or Canada for a semester.

You may already know this, but Canadian universities much like the locals are nothing like the states. You don't get anywhere near the proportion of people living on campus or living away from their parents, which makes a big difference in the campus life.

 

[22 others]

You may already know this, but Canadian universities much like the locals are nothing like the states. You don't get anywhere near the proportion of people living on campus or living away from their parents, which makes a big difference in the campus life.

Thanks for the feedback. The only real thing thats keeping me from the states is that Ill be under 21 at time of exchange and that there is a lot of competition for the states so if I were to go I would probably get a middle of the range uni/area or worse. But from my experience/ talking to others Hong Kong has the best mix of nightlife/ Potential for girls/ cultural experience for someone my age. The future job prospects would also be a lot more diverse than the states, Europe or Canada I would imagine as well.

 

[Colin D'Cops]

Hook up with girls way out of your league...Check
Absolute control over your life..Check
Clean slate to be or do what you always wanted..Check
Living in real cities..Check (Melbourne is amazing but ultimately not in the same league as Paris/London/New York etc)

From a personal experience I did my stint abroad in my mid 20's and it was great and I learnt allot. Now if I did that at 19 or 21, that development would have come 5 years earlier and I could still do it all again in my mid 20's.

Cheers. Yeah obviously had an inkling what it'd be like.

Would love to do it myself. Maybe in a couple of years, final year Uni. Set up a placement or something in the US.

 

[nobbyiscool]

I'm another who regrets not doing any student exchange like crazy.

So much so that I'm now a 30 year old doing a post grad who still wants to right that wrong - despite knowing how much it would cost to study as a post-grad in the US, and despite knowing how much it would cost me in lost earnings.

If you have the opportunity to do it, I reckon everyone should. In fact, I reckon universities should push them a hell of a lot more than they do to the point where it's not a special thing to do - it's just normal.

 

[manboob]

Do it in Europe brother. So much cheaper.

 

[James_Blues]

Would you guys/girls recomend going for a semester or a year?

From what I found out today at an info session at my uni, its better to apply for a year long one and decide to cut it short to a semester than it is to do a semester and decide you want to stay on due to organising visas etc.

 

[manboob]

Big +1 on this one!
Often you have to be in your home country to organise the visa at the embassy of the country you want to study in.
Unless your going there on another passport. E.g. UK citizen in Europe.

 

[Vic Vinegar]

From what I found out today at an info session at my uni, its better to apply for a year long one and decide to cut it short to a semester than it is to do a semester and decide you want to stay on due to organising visas etc.

Agreed. I did mine in my very last semester so I had no option. One of the other Australians was in the same boat but apparently managed to convince her organizer back home to let her do another superfluous semester (I don't know how, or whether she was just full of s**t).

I had no choice as I did a double law degree so I could only ever do one semester due to scheduling, but if I had the choice I would definitely go for a year.