I cannot believe almost a month has passed since I’ve left the U.S. It feels as though each day passes by slowly yet it does not feel as though I have been in Australia for almost an entire month. Despite feeling overwhelmed and out of place when first arriving, I have quickly settled into Monash with a routine and a group of friends.
After accepting my offer to study abroad and being granted a visa, I had to figure out where to live. Monash is located about 20 km from Melbourne’s CBD, Central Business District or the main part of the city, which takes over an hour on public transportation. Initially I thought I wanted to live in the city or one of the nearby suburbs with a fun social scene and lots to do on the weekends. I began looking but quickly realized that over an hour commute to and from campus each day would make focusing on classes difficult in a semester where it would already be hard to remain focused. In addition, after doing some preliminary research, I realized that I would also have to stay in a hostel for a few weeks while searching for a place to live in person. Just thinking about not knowing where I would live until I got there stressed me out, so I reluctantly ruled off campus accommodation out.
After deciding to live on campus, I began to look at my options. The most appealing option was the new studio apartments located centrally on campus equipped with my own bathroom and kitchenette. Rejecting advice from a friend who had studied abroad that I might feel isolated, I decided to apply for this type of housing and was excited when I received it. The rooms were as promised: new, clean, well-furnished. My friend, however, was not wrong. In the first couple weeks, though I relished my own space to FaceTime friends, adjust to the new environment, be as messy or clean as I wanted, it was also too easy for me to feel lonely. I quickly became thankful for all of the programs put on by my hall to keep its residents involved and feeling like a community.
Despite occasional feelings of isolation, I managed to find a group of friends in the first week of being on campus. Monash University does a very nice job of introducing the exchange students to each other and to its campus. Because of this, I was able to quickly meet and befriend a number of students who are also on exchange in Australia. I found it surprising, and still do, that my friends are primarily students from the UK, Germany, and France rather than Australia. In the recent weeks, I have managed to learn as much, if not more, British slang than Australian.
Meeting people in my classes, however, has proved much more difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly, I have had the most exposure to other exchange students and unsurprisingly, very few exchange students are studying engineering, let alone chemical engineering. In addition, since I am mostly taking what are considered to be third year classes at Monash, most students in my classes have already formed study groups. I’ve mostly met people in my classes through group projects. In one class, I was randomly assigned to a group and in another, some girls asked me to join their group. Not knowing people in class hasn’t been that difficult, as the professors are readily available to ask questions and I have less distractions while in class.
