#vu100

Here’s a piece I wrote for the Global Society, an organisation for Australians that have studied overseas (or who are about to go)

Hi, my name is Elisse and I’m in my fourth semester at VU, studying Marketing Communications.

I was in my second semester at uni when I began to notice posters and fliers around my campus advertising different study abroad destinations. After walking past these posters for a few weeks, I started to seriously entertain the idea of applying to study overseas. When I heard there was going to be an information day for interested students, I decided to stop by and talk to someone about what options were available to me.

Some of the posters I had seen mentioned that government grants were available to students travelling to certain destinations, and one of these was Mexico. Since I was a little kid, I have been obsessed by central American history, so I made a bee line to the Mexican booth at the information day. I spoke to some people from the Study Abroad office, and realised that it really isn’t that difficult, or expensive, to study abroad, and there is a lot of support, both academic and financial, that was available.

Eight weeks later, I found myself boarding a flight to LA, with a connecting flight to Guadalajara, Mexico. I was scared and excited in equal measures. I had no idea what to expect, and no one to connect with when I got there, as I was the only student from VU who was heading for Mexico. I had faith that I would work out what to do, find accommodation and make friends when I arrived.

I arrived a week before orientation, so I could try to get my bearings in a new city in a strange country. I spent the first week walking around, figuring out the public transport system and scouring the exchange student Facebook pages (there were quite a few) for accommodation options. I went and looked at a few places, and found a great place to live right across the road from campus with a couple of Mexican girls who had studied there.

The international student office at the university organised plenty of events where I could meet other exchange students and travel to some tourist destinations before semester began, which were cheap and fun, but it wasn’t until classes started that I really started to bond with the people who ended up becoming close friends.

My time in Mexico was absolutely amazing, everything I expected and much more. I learned so much about a culture I was and am still fascinated by. I learned so much about myself, and how I am able to deal with difficult and unfamiliar circumstances. I learned about people from other cultures and I look at the world differently now. I even learned a little bit of Spanish (the main language of Mexico). I learnt that I am stronger than I thought, and more adaptable than I could have imagined. I’ve made friends from many countries that have been through the same experience I went through, some of whom I talk to on a weekly basis and plan to meet up with again soon.

And I am about to do it all again.