{"id":6712,"date":"2019-06-11T16:34:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T06:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/qut-exchange-students\/?p=6712"},"modified":"2020-06-23T12:02:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T02:02:00","slug":"my-exchange-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/gone-global\/2019\/06\/11\/my-exchange-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"My exchange adventure in England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mackenzie – Aston University, England<\/h3>\n

Semester 1, 2016
\nBachelor of Industrial Design<\/h4>\n

My experience<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Do you fancy seeing the world? Feel like shaking things up? Want to make uni a lot more fun? If this sounds like you then go sign up for student exchange! Student exchange is an opportunity to live and study overseas. You get to meet people from all parts of the globe, see places you never would and have the time of your life all while completing your studies.<\/p>\n

About Aston University<\/h4>\n

Earlier this year I flew over to Birmingham, England to complete my first semester of third year industrial design at Aston University. For four months I lived and studied abroad in a country I\u2019ve never been to. There I learnt about product design, made worldwide friends and had an absolutely great time all the while completing my studies. Aston University was my uni of choice for its industry backed reputation and central location.<\/p>\n

Although the content they taught was more on the engineering side, they provided knowledge that I would likely not learn elsewhere. Submitting assignments, sitting exams and general university life was not so different to how we do it here which made adapting to their system a breeze.<\/p>\n

Similarly studying in an English speaking country was not a problem at all. The accents and weather were the biggest difference initially but were soon overcome. So no intense culture shock here compared to the more foreign locations available. That said if you want to take it easy, Canada, USA and the UK are more comfortable options should English be your native language.<\/p>\n

Life abroad at university is fun. Aston accommodates foreign exchange students very well with regular events and trips around the country. The majority of exchange students hung out together and with people from all over Europe, South America and just about everywhere else we felt a great sense of community exploring and learning together as foreigners.<\/p>\n

Budgeting, working and travelling<\/h4>\n

For me, I chose not to work and relied upon loans and savings to keep myself financially supported. So not needing a job meant I had more time to study and even more time to explore the UK and just have fun. With my crew of international students we visited most major UK cities, Liverpool, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Dublin and so on. Unique to the English semester is a three week mid semester holiday. Being so close to France and in the middle of winter that meant skiing was up for grabs. So my mid semester break consisted of a week-long ski trip with the uni and two weeks of hot, beautiful sun in the Canary Islands. Luckily for me it wasn\u2019t all about studying. Maybe your university has something similar. You can make your student exchange custom made for whatever interests you! Something not thought about often when considering student exchange.<\/p>\n