Newcastle, Australia: A Greater Learning Opportunity Than I Ever Expected #HogsAbroad

Prior to studying abroad in Australia I had spent six days outside the US, and had never lived outside of Arkansas before a summer internship after my sophomore year. Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed whenever I found myself on a train from Sydney to Newcastle with two bags, little money, plenty of jet lag, and no idea where I was going to spend the night much less the rest of the semester. After a little time to adjust though studying abroad has proven to be one of the highlights of my college career and a greater learning opportunity than I ever expected.

I had two main academic objectives while studying abroad. The first was to see what academics was like outside the fields of math and science. Being a chemical engineering and physics major, I don’t have the opportunity to take many history, art, or humanity classes. So, I figured why not take a few of these classes while abroad so that I can couple my new cultural experiences with my new learning experiences. In a general sense I met this objective in that I took a philosophy and a film lecture class, but I couldn’t say that I wholly enjoyed the process. I found Philosophy interesting because you could take the method of thinking you learned in class and use it to analyze your own beliefs and ideas. Unfortunately I was unable to find any such enjoyment or interest in film lecture. The ideas presented were a little too abstract for me to appreciate. For example, we were presented with the idea that viewers of the fourth Transformers movie fetishize Optimus Prime which results in heightened film continuity. Despite attempting to understand such material, the significance and meaning of such claims was largely lost on me.

My second objective was to see whether I should consider going to graduate school outside the US. After getting my undergrad I plan on entering a PhD program in materials science. Living in Australia for over four months and spending time at one of their universities allowed me to answer this question with an emphatic yes. There were a number of professors at the University of Newcastle and other Australian Universities who were pursuing research topics I was interested in. Additionally, I felt that I was comfortable living and studying in a foreign country. Whether or not I will pursue graduate school in Australia or elsewhere is a toss-up, but I’m glad I know it’s a viable option that I might get to act on.

Kangas and Wallabies

Although academics and travel are the two topics that likely receive the most attention while studying abroad, I learned the most and made the most memories from day in and day out living in Newcastle. Australia is very much a western nation and shares many similarities to the US, but that does not mean everything is the same. There is no Walmart. There are no college sports teams. You want a thickshake not a milkshake (the latter is disappointing). Chicken is more expensive than beef which is sometimes more expensive than Kangaroo. Your house isn’t air conditioned in the summer and isn’t heated in the winter. The C-word is used flippantly. And, one of my favorites, there is no such thing as Cantaloupe: it’s referred to as rock melon. 

I could continue for a long time, but these are only superficial, if fun, differences between Australia and the USA. On a broader scale, Australians are incredibly nice and very laid back. It was eye opening in my separations class whenever a girl in the back addressed my professor by his first name while asking a question, but that level of casualness seemed to be present most everywhere in society. I was brought up saying sir and ma’am when addressing my elders, but many people here asked me not to refer to them as such with the exception of a lady who described me as a “southern gentleman” for doing so.

I would highly encourage any of my fellow students, especially those who have spent little time outside the US, to consider studying abroad. It isn’t a semester long vacation and there are times when you will wish you were home, but it is an excellent opportunity to experience what it is like to live somewhere as well as learn an incredible amount. While in Cairns I went scuba diving for the first time and saw the Great Barrier Reef. The diving was incredibly fun, but was also a sobering experience due to the amount of coral bleaching we saw and the knowledge that within 20-30 years the majority of the reef will be dead. This is one of many experiences I had that you can’t achieve in a class room. You are forced to look at the world in a different manner and in my case end up changing how you think and live as a result. Such experiences are extremely gratifying and are bound to happen while studying abroad.

Now that I’ve mentioned all of the serious stuff I should note that studying abroad is terrific fun. I explored over 17 national parks and drove through many more. I made friends with fellow Razorbacks, Newcastle students, Australians, and people from around the world. I sang Guns N’ Roses at a hostel in New Zealand with a group of French backpackers, climbed Mt. Doom with a chef from Milan, stayed the night in a lighthouse where you could see wombats and kangaroos eating outside, and biked on the New South Whales coast with an Australian cyclist almost four times as old as me. There are many more stories I could tell, but my post is getting a little long as is. Looking forward to seeing y’all back in the US and GO HOGS!

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