So I just finished up 6 months in Melbourne and absolutely fell in love with Australia. Everyone was so welcoming and studying internationally was an amazing cultural experience and I really think I grew a lot as a person. I studied abroad by directly enrolling in the University of Melbourne so I was completely immersed and was usually the only non-Australian in class. There were many aspects I liked such as the laid back culture, but also things that really made me appreciative of USC like all the clubs and also our style of teaching. At Uni, typically the final for a class consists of 75% of your total grade and the other 25% comes from the lab section, which means that there is no homework, quizzes or midterms (which sounds like a good thing but makes it very hard to stay on top of learning material). That basically means that my entire semester was super lowkey until the last month which was crazy intense.
First week of classes completed at @unimelb #ViterbiAbroad pic.twitter.com/NRyCsuFyxr
— Ally Reister (@AllyReister) August 2, 2015
Bushwalkin like a true Aussie #ViterbiAbroad #FTFO pic.twitter.com/QEn0cV7lT1
— Ally Reister (@AllyReister) August 29, 2015
Within Australia I was able to travel to Adelaide, Tasmania, Sydney, and The Great Barrier Reef, and internationally I headed up to Indonesia for my Spring Break. Everyday was exciting and definitely the highlight was meeting people from all over the world. I highly recommend studying abroad and though I had an unbelievable time, I am very excited to come back to USC. I miss working on a racecar, knowing my professors personally, and exploring LA with my friends.
Last day in Australia!
Can’t wait for 2016!!!
Check out a gallery of my 19 weeks abroad below 🙂
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