After returning back to Connecticut a couple days ago, I have had the time to reflect on my time in Australia. What I gained out of this experience exceeded my expectations and I will miss my host university with my whole heart. During my time abroad, I made friends with students from several different states such as Wisconsin, Utah, Delaware, Texas, and more; these are people who I never would have met if I didn’t study abroad. My best friend and roommate lives in New Jersey, so we plan on seeing each other in the near future. Australia prepared me for my future because it taught me how to handle both little and big problems and how to become even more independent.

At Bond University in Australia, I was held accountable for my school work in a much different way than I was used to. There was no homework assignments and my grades were made of around 2-3 big assignments, which meant that I had to stay on top of my work and mostly teach myself the material. I was able to further develop my time management skills since I had a bunch of free time. I planned out my class schedule so that I could take classes early in the morning and spend the rest of the day at my leisure. I was able to reach my academic goals by reaching “high distinction” in my most important class abroad and I fulfilled my personal goals by traveling to all the places that I planned on going, making close friends, and taking full advantage of my time abroad. Australia gave me a different perspective on the world. Being from a town near New York, I was used to an extremely fast paced life and daily encounters with some unfriendly people. In Australia things are different, the life-style is much more relaxed, the people aren’t always in a rush and seem to be genuinely happy. This is one of the reasons why I loved Australia so much. My future advice to students going to study in Australia is to plan everything in advance!!!! Start planning out your trips as soon as your class schedule is confirmed. This will allow you to see more places and find better travel deals; the earlier you book the better. I also advise the use of a planner because there will be many important dates such as traveling, class assignments, and extracurriculars that you will want to keep track of. After graduation, I plan to go to law school and during the 3 years at law school, I hope to do a summer internship in Australia. One day, I plan on bringing my family to Australia and New Zealand to show them the place that I love so much.