The night before I left on my six-month exchange to Canada, I said to my mum “this is either going to be the best or the worst decision of my life”.
I’m sure you’re all shocked (not) to read that it was, in fact, the best decision of my life (maybe not anymore but it’s close). So if any of you are thinking of going on exchange whether it’s with uni, school or even as a gap year, I say DO IT! Sure, there are ups and downs but that’s just life and in the end you’ll definitely look back and say “wow, that was an incredible experience”.
My university exchange
In 2016 I had the opportunity to go on exchange as part of my university degree to the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. I was also lucky enough to get a small scholarship from my university. As part of that, I was meant to write a reflection when I got home for other students to read as they tried to decide what host university to go to. At the time, I was convinced I was bad at writing so I decided to make a video instead!
It’s pretty ironic that about 3 years later I’m writing a whole series of blog posts about it. But that’s ok – at the time making the video was loads more fun!
I wasn’t sure whether to include this video in here because it’s not exactly the best video in the world… But it’s on my channel so I figure it’s too late, and I might as well share it! You can watch it below or click here. I hope that it gives you a bit more of a visual idea of what my exchange looked like!
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Realistically, there are thousands of reasons why going on exchange is an incredible experience. It was actually kind of difficult pinpointing what my reasons for recommending exchange are and putting them into words! However, I did manage to think of and write about six. Whilst I’ve written these reasons with my own university exchange in mind, I’m sure you could apply them to just about any exchange or maybe even a long-term trip! Anyway, here they are:
You get to live away from home (and your parents) for ~6 months
Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone but it was a big deal for me. Before going on exchange I’d never lived on my own, and I’ve lived with my parents ever since I came back. Therefore, exchange was an opportunity to have a go at living on my own for four months. On the other side of the world, no less! I experienced doing everything for myself from cooking to cleaning, as well as living with roommates.
Even if you’re someone who has already moved out, you’ll still get a lot of living away from your hometown. Because whilst living alone or with roommates isn’t necessarily new to you, it IS still a new city and country! There’s so many aspects of life in Canada that are different from Australia. From little things like what you can buy in the grocery store, to big things like the fact that it snows! You get to experience a completely different way of life.
You get to experience a different university
I really enjoyed my time at the University of Alberta, and it was quite different from my university back home. I’m planning on having a whole post about this so stay tuned for that in the next couple of weeks! My exchange semester was by far the highlight of my degree (admittedly I didn’t like my degree all that much). I think it gave me more of a global perspective of ecology, conservation and environmental science (which I was studying) as well as a greater appreciation of the incredible environment back home in Australia. I actually really liked the teaching style there; for some reason, things felt a bit more relaxed.
I guess depending on the type of exchange you do, this might be the same as point one. It’s mostly about experiencing a different way of life. However, based on my limited understanding of non-university exchanges, you either go to a school or work somewhere. I knew people from high school who went and did an extra year of school in Scandinavia for their gap year. I also know people who have been Au Pairs in Europe or worked at a summer camp in the US. So no matter which of those you do, you’ll have the chance to experience something completely new.
Your grades don’t count towards your GPA!
This was the best part about attending university overseas! Most universities have partnerships with other universities so that any exchange students that go there don’t have their grades count towards their GPA. All you have to do is pass! Ironically, I got better grades in Canada than at home but it was really nice to not have to worry about whether I got an A or a D. Of course, as someone who cares about doing well in the first place I still got stressed at exam time and freaked out when I nearly failed my overly-specific dinosaur exam but it didn’t matter so much in the end.
You get to travel to another part of the world
I feel like I’m starting to repeat myself a little here; this one is rather similar to the first two… But I’ll leave it here anyway because no doubt it’s what has attracted you to consider exchange in the first place! Canada was somewhere I had always wanted to visit. What better excuse to go than for an exchange! It all counted towards my degree so I think it was a fairly productive trip! Also, by going on exchange, I had the opportunity to LIVE in Canada as opposed to just visiting. So I really felt like I got to know the country better. Well, the west coast anyway… I hear the east is extremely different!
I know that my university had partnerships with universities in every continent in the world (aside from Antarctica, of course!). That means you could go just about anywhere you wanted! No matter what kind of experience you’re after, there will be somewhere for you. At some host universities, you can learn the local language. At others (like mine), you don’t need to. Maybe you want to experience city life on the other side of the world. Or maybe you want to live in a small town. Anyway you get my point.
You meet the coolest people
Okay… Admittedly not everyone you meet is awesome. I had this one awful roommate (and two incredible ones – who I still talk to!!!). But for the most part the people you meet are really great. In my opinion, I was lucky. There was only three other people going to the UofA in Semester 2 2016 (which was more than usual, apparently) from my home uni and I never crossed paths with a single one! This meant that I spent all of my time with locals or exchange students from countries!
Admittedly, it’ll be easier to meet locals at some host unis than at others. As I mentioned above, UofA was pretty unpopular with people from my uni (honestly not sure why??????), but a friend of mine went to the university of Edinburgh in the UK. She actually came back with two best friends FROM OUR UNI. No offence if you’re reading this but I thought it was kind of weird. I mean, one of them was super cool, though, so I guess she hits the brief for this point!
My tips for meeting locals on exchange
If you’re wanting to meet locals, I’d recommend joining some clubs as well as doing less popular, higher level courses. I did one third-year course all about Rangelands which was super interesting and ONLY had locals in it! This particular course also had a field trip and a group assignment so there was plenty of opportunity to get to know people. As opposed to all the other courses I did, which had about 500 people in them each. I also was a member of the orchestra while I was away. Taking your instrument to the other side of the world is a pretty major undertaking so unsurprisingly, I was the only exchange student! Probably my best friends on exchange were in the orchestra. Everyone was so lovely and they even got together and got me a gift at my last performance!
You grow as a person
This is probably not one that you think about before you go but it’s definitely true. I believe I am a very different person now than I was before I left for exchange and I definitely grew as a person while I was away. In particular, I believe going on exchange increased my confidence and independence. I used to be really nervous and shy talking to new people, and I hated the idea of going somewhere on my own without my friends or family. On exchange, I was forced to talk to lots of new people and though I always invited my roommates to come with me on club trips, I usually ended up going alone. Of course, I ended up making new friends instead! Anyone who knows me now probably sees me as fairly outgoing, as well as the kind of person who says things how they are.
Everyone’s journey is going to be different. But exchange will be a huge part of your life, so it probably isn’t all that surprising it makes such an impact!
As usual, I have no idea how to end this blog post. But all I can say is I hope some of you will consider going on exchange now, if you have the opportunity! Obviously writing this during lockdown, not many people will be planning exchanges right now. But maybe in the near future. If you’re not planning an exchange, still keep an eye out for my Canada posts because I’ll be writing about all the cool places I travelled to as well!
Missed my Africa or Australia series’? You can find here: Africa | Australia