When I first made the decision to study in Australia, I was very scared. I actually found it hard to even feel excited, because I was too nervous. My friends and family were so happy for me, and assured me that I’d have the time of my life, which I refused to believe. I remembered how scared I was to come to Northeastern my first year, and wondered why I voluntarily put myself through the nerve-racking process again of starting school in a new place. I tried to prepare myself for a repeat of my least-favorite parts of college, most notably living in an apartment filled with mice, or having a cringey randomly-assigned roommate. I’m a nervous person in general, and the idea of not knowing what’s going to happen in a given situation severely disturbs me. Pretty quickly upon arriving, I realized that most of my concerns were irrelevant. My randomly assigned roommates were, in fact, not cringey at all, although I think this might be a one-in-several million chance, so don’t hold me accountable if the person you live with adamantly refuses to flush the toilet in your shared bathroom, or nearly calls the police on you for accidentally drinking their apple juice from Outtakes valued at approximately 99¢ (I am neither confirming nor denying that these things happened to me in Boston). They actually became some of my closest friends while I was here. There weren’t even mice in the house, just huge spiders and swarms of reptiles :’). It was only easy for me to see that my worrying was useless after I had already arrived and spent a bit of time here. But I’m working on learning that creating anxiety over things that haven’t even happened yet is a major waste of time. I wish I could’ve spent the better part of the Fall semester getting excited about everything, but I was dead-set on preparing myself for fake scenarios instead.
I think that everyone should study abroad if they have the resources to do so. I never planned on it, again because it seemed scary, and also because I didn’t know enough about it to be interested. If I would’ve planned it more in advance, I would have been even better off in terms of saving money, buying flights, and storing my things in Boston. I wish I would’ve at least looked into the idea further in advance, which is what I’d recommend everyone do, even if you don’t think you’re into the idea. I also assumed that I wouldn’t be able to find classes at Bond that would count toward my degree, since Human Services isn’t the most popular area of study. And honestly, that was the single worst part of the entire planning process, and also the most time-consuming (the image of my degree audit haunts me to this very day). It wasn’t easy by any means, especially because I was on a time-restriction, but I definitely think that anyone with a more common major or more time to plan would have a much easier go of it. I didn’t realize either that the visa application process took approximately 25 years and 500 forms of documentation. Also, who knew that my passport apparently expired in 2012 (not me). So basically, try not to save things until the last minute.
I’m quite sad to be leaving Australia. Being away from Boston made it easier for me to see that I needed to stop spending all of my time rushing through things that I don’t enjoy just for the sake of pleasing other people. It also helped me stop being so uptight. There’s a lot of things that I honestly just don’t care about anymore and have let go of, which might sound bad, but I didn’t quite realize how much negativity I carried with me until I was completely removed from everything. I’ve made some really great friends here, and have had some of the best experiences of my entire life here. It usually makes me cringe to say things like that, but for this one time, I’ll make an exception.
