Studying in Australia: the country to put on your bucket list!

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How often do you get the opportunity to study abroad for one semester on the other side of the world? Max van Elten and Martine Spaan got offered this opportunity through the exchange program of Tilburg University. Both of them had never traveled outside of Europe before, but both chose Australia immediately. In this article, Max shares his experience of Melbourne and Martine tells about her experience in Sydney. Furthermore, they speak about their backpacking adventures through the rest of Australia.

Max van Elten – La Trobe University, Melbourne 

I immediately knew that I wanted to visit an English speaking country. Eventually, Australia became my first choice, a country with much diversity, both in nature and the people that live there. Out of my three choices, the university assigned me to La Trobe University in Melbourne. I did not hesitate for a single moment about the offer. This was the start of my adventure.

La Trobe University is located in the suburbs of Melbourne, Bundoora. With public transfer the trip is about 45 minutes to get to the CBD. The campus of La Trobe University is one of the biggest university campuses in the southern hemisphere, with e.g. a nature reserve. Besides this main campus, the university has different campuses within Victoria. One of the main education differences between the Netherlands and Australia is that in Australia it is more common to work on essays and group projects. The nice thing about an exchange in my opinion, was that you can choose all your own courses. Besides Accounting and Finance I also followed some Entrepreneurial courses, which was enlightening, since you really got challenged to think and act as an entrepreneur. We had to present our business plan twice, the first time in a group, the second time by ourselves. Besides that, I got the opportunity to follow the course Discover Australia. This taught me about the history and myths of Australia. 

“On the Gold Coast we saw the perfect waves for surfers, at Whitsunday Islands we saw beautiful white beaches and at Cairns we discovered the underwater nature at the Great Barrier Reef.”

I started my journey in Melbourne, the city that I lived in from that moment on. Melbourne is a vibrant city, there are always events in town and there is so much culture to discover. From museums to street art in the city centre. Melbourne has been awarded the most livable city in the world for a long time. If you take a look outside of Melbourne, you will encounter beautiful nature. I went to Philip Island, for example, where I could pet the kangaroos and watch penguins walk on the beach at sunset. In the past months there have been many forest fires all over Australia. This has destroyed some of nature in this beautiful country. However, this did not affect our adventure that much in Melbourne. Close to Melbourne is the famous Great Ocean Road. This is a road that follows the ocean for miles long, where you can see the beautiful erosion of the coastline. Apart from Melbourne I also visited many other cities across the East Coast of Australia and because the country is that big, you encounter different stuff everywhere. On the Gold Coast we saw the perfect waves for surfers, at Whitsunday Islands we saw beautiful white beaches and at Cairns we discovered the underwater nature at the Great Barrier Reef.

Martine Spaan – University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney

The past semester I studied at UTS, which was the perfect location since the campus is in the middle of the city centre of Sydney. The first lectures started really early in the year, in July, which meant that I had a really short Spring Break. It was winter in Australia at that time, but luckily Australia has soft winters. During my Spring Break in September I took the chance to enjoy the warmer areas by going to the Whitsunday Islands. I made a boat trip of three days together with a group, where we encountered dolphins, whales and big turtles. We also went snorkeling in this area, at the world’s biggest and most beautiful coral reef: the Great Barrier Reef.

The advantage of such an early start of the semester at UTS was that I finished my classes at the beginning of November. Furthermore, most of the universities in Australia do not have any resits, so I could fully focus on travelling around Australia. Even though you only have one chance at your courses, the level is easy enough to pass all your courses, especially because your final result is divided amongst several projects and midterms. 

After the classes were finished, in November, the bushfires in Eastern Australia started to happen. This was exactly at the location where I began my own trip. Through the window of the airplane I saw enormous clouds of smoke, and while laying on the beach in Noosa Heads I could see an actual bushfire. However, I have been very lucky during my trip, because I have been to many places at the right time. Nobody could enter Byron Bay anymore, because of the fire on highways, exactly one day after I had been there. Also, I have visited the Blue Mountains in Sydney, where currently about 80% of the forest is burned down. Even though it was tough to see the fires so nearby, it did not disturb my travels that much.

“The water as clear as the sky, the breathtaking views after long hikes, the beautiful animals: Australia is basically the perfect place to tick the boxes off your bucket list.”

When the Australian summer began, in December, I flew to the West Coast of Australia to do a road trip of two weeks together with a girl from Switzerland. This was by far the most amazing trip that I have ever made in my entire life. With a Scooby-Doo campervan, the ‘Mystery Machine’, we traveled about three hours every day through the middle of nowhere to visit all the hotspots. On the West Coast there is not a lot of tourism, which makes the population relatively small. You barely have any internet connection with your telephone, which makes it even more relaxing for you, but not for your relatives, since they were worried because of the bushfires. On this trip I discovered how the actual Australian life is. The surroundings are incredibly beautiful on the West Coast, much better compared to the East Coast. You get to see kangaroos next to your campervan, on the road and even on the beach, you see them everywhere! The water as clear as the sky, the breathtaking views after long hikes, the beautiful animals: Australia is basically the perfect place to tick the boxes off your bucket list.