By Dominique Von Oppell
Choosing where to go abroad for your 2nd year as a student on International Business Management is a tough decision. I had never been to –the USA, Canada, Hong Kong or Australia, but had always wanted to visit all four. As I was going to be living somewhere new for a year, I wanted to be sure that I picked a country and a university that suited me.
The first thing I did was attend the Study Abroad Open Day, this gives you an opportunity to talk to fellow students who were from or had been to those universities. It allowed me to ask them questions about their experiences and gave me sense of what it would be like to live at each university and in a different country. Even after this, I still had difficulty choosing where I wanted to go, as all the universities offered opportunities that were unique and that I wanted to experience.
I decided to take a more rational approach to decide where I wanted to go. I wrote out all the points that I thought were important to consider when going abroad and ranked them accordingly. These included: language barriers, the cost, what job opportunities were available, societies and clubs that were on offer, the modules that were available and the weather.
Although all the teaching is in English, wherever you go, I wanted to go to an English speaking country, as I felt that going abroad was going to be a big enough challenge for me so this ruled out Hong Kong. The cost and job opportunities were other points to consider, it is well known that students don’t have much money so I would like to be able to get job while I am out there to help with living costs.
This gave me an interesting dilemma: Australia has higher living costs compared to Canada and the USA, however, it is easier to get a job in Australia. I also looked at the societies, clubs and modules that were on offer. The climate of each country had an effect on my choices, as I really wanted to go to a hot, sunny country. This is probably because I grew up in South Africa, so I have missed the heat and sunshine living in the UK! All these points helped me to refine my list of potential universities.
Eventually I decided on Monash University in Melbourne, Australia as my first choice. Luckily I have now secured a spot at Monash, so I am very excited to be heading off down under in July. I am really happy that I put effort into researching each university, as even though this took some time, I am now thrilled with my decision. Now all that is left is to take my summer exams, pack my bags and board a plane to my new adventure!