My Study Abroad Advice

When I was going through this whole studying abroad process, I wish I had had more access to previous study abroad students. So, all of the following is my advice for students, especially Mizzou engineering students considering studying abroad and students hoping to study abroad in Australia.

You have to choose the country you want to go to. Picking the country will be very hard, but picking the university can be even harder. I had originally picked Ireland, but after going through the courses at the university I wanted to attend, I didn't find any matches that worked for my major. Then, I went to my next choice: Australia.I also thought that the only way I'd ever get to Australia would be if I studied abroad there.

There are literally programs for every university in Australia whether you go through Australearn (which I did), Mizzou, Butler, or Arcadia. What impacted my choice was the classes offered. I needed to take certain engineering courses while I was abroad so I could stay on course for graduation. In Australia, you use what they call the "Handbook" which tells you everything about the course and where to find its syllabus; in fact, you'll have more trouble finding the syllabus for courses at Mizzou. If you'd like a guarantee that your courses will come back as you need them to, e-mail the Australian course info to the professor who teaches that course. I did this with almost every class and had to fight International Admissions when they tried to tell me a course came back as something else. They can get it wrong!

Some more small things I can pass on:

• Apply as early as possible, you'll get the best housing options available. I had so many different options since I applied so early, I could have lived wherever I wanted (I chose the equivalent of the dorms here aka a college in Australia). And try to live with locals! You came to their country for a reason, you will learn the most about it through them!
• Try to not pick the most obvious, touristy place in the country. I originally did not want to go to Sydney, but course-wise it was the smartest option.
• Semester 1 in Australia is our 2nd Semester, a "course" is a program or like a sequence for us, a "unit" is a course or class to us, a "college" is a dorm, yes, it's like a dorm and a fraternity combined, and 6 credits in Australia (a typical course) is about 3 to 4 hours credit here.

The biggest advice that I got from another Mizzou study abroad alumni was this: 

"You can go on a vacation anytime you want; this is the only time you will ever have the chance to become part of another culture." As bad as I want to see every part of Australia and travel every weekend to different cities and places, I want to be a part of the culture more. You only get to study abroad once.  

Hope this helps if you're thinking about studying abroad!