{"id":7833,"date":"2019-12-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/qut-exchange-students\/?p=7833"},"modified":"2021-03-12T16:10:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T06:10:41","slug":"my-awesome-exchange-to-bi-norwegian-business-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qut.edu.au\/gone-global\/2019\/12\/30\/my-awesome-exchange-to-bi-norwegian-business-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Out and about in Oslo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hai Ling – BI Norwegian Business School, Norway<\/h3>\n

Semester 1, 2019
\nBachelor of Business<\/h5>\n

I spent three weeks in the UK prior to going to Oslo, to visit family and reunite with old friends, I spent three weeks trying to prepare myself for the next six months. But how are you supposed to prepare for something like this? How do you ready yourself, physically and mentally for something like this? Even after the exchange I still can\u2019t answer that question, truthfully I don\u2019t think you can, you simply put the pieces together as you go.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019d never lived away from home by myself before, not in another country let alone the other side of the planet, this experience was completely new to me. I knew no one going there and I knew no one when I got there. But the next six months would change me completely, in what was and will always remain the greatest and most beneficial experience in my life so far. I would make lifetime friends from completely different countries, many of whom I would visit and see again after the exchange when I travelled across Europe. I would create memorable experiences with those friends that will stay with me forever, events I will never forget and people I will always miss.<\/p>\n

I arrived in Oslo at midday on the 31st of December 2018. It had not yet dawned on me what was to come, I still couldn\u2019t fully grasp the idea that for the next six months I would be living here, sleeping here, studying here, thousands and thousands of kilometres from my home, my family, my friends… and my cat.<\/p>\n

Very few times during my trip did I get close to that realisation, I think the whole time I was just too engulfed in the whole experience, so much so that I couldn\u2019t fully understand the extent of what was really going on. Not that it was a bad thing, instead\u00a0 that it was something new, different and so far out of my comfort zone that it had to be done.<\/p>\n