I’ve now been home for a week and find myself reflecting on the past twelve months. All the places I got to go as a result of my exchange, the people I met along the way, having the beach 10 minutes down the road (a major thing to miss), gazing at the Opera House on the weekends in the city, browsing Paddington market on a Saturday morning, taking part in the infamous Uni games (this year taking place in Melbourne – ouch, that hurts), the list goes on.
The most rewarding aspect of an exchange year is the experience of something completely unique; it’s an opportunity which you will never have again. You may travel when you graduate or during the summer, you may go on to work overseas in the future, you may have long holidays abroad – but to live in a foreign country for twelve months and study at a university there is unlikely to be something you will be able to do at any other point in your life. In my experience it wasn’t a holiday or glorified travelling – I built a life in Sydney; a home, a job, university and friends. I urge anyone who wishes to immerse themselves in something alien to apply for an exchange and don’t hold back when you get there.
Academically I am so thankful for the opportunities I had at UNSW. The courses I was able to take were innovative, engaging, challenging and intellectually rewarding. I really feel as if my historical perspective and the way in which I approach topics and discussions was enhanced and diversified a great deal. Some of the assignments involved film reviews or museum evaluations which demanded a completely different set of criteria and I felt I interacted with historical material in a way which forced me to really analyse the way in which we, as historians, present and display our histories, a subject which I am now hugely interested in and pursuing in my spare time. The research project on Japanese Anarchism in particular was a definite highlight and again a subject that I will continue to read about.
The travelling that I got to do was incredible, from the little road trips around Sydney to the final flurry in Fiji, having already spent a year in Australia for my Gap year made absolutely no difference to the amount of places there were to visit – there are still places I want to go to!
All in all I feel that it was an awesome year that was perfectly timed. I was ready to go to Australia again and once again forge a different life in Sydney but I was ready to come back home and come September I will be ready to return to Edinburgh to slog it out for my final year. If you’re up for an exciting, fun filled year that puts you out of your comfort zone and into a world of opportunity – do an exchange, and in my humbled opinion – do it in Australia!
