Jiayan Pan

The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Exchange to The University of Melbourne, Australia

2006 was a very special year for me because I received an Endeavour Cheung Kong Award to visit the University of Melbourne for half a year. As a highly competitive award, only 20 students out of more than 200 applicants were provided with scholarship awards. I greatly appreciated the precious opportunity this award presented me to experience a different culture in Australia.

When I got my staff card at the University of Melbourne and was told that I was an academic visitor at the university, I suddenly realized that I had received a new title and I had to adjust to it in the following six months. As my research topic is the emotional resilience of university students in Hong Kong from Mainland China, my task in Australia was to collect some data on Chinese international students in Australia to compare with the data I had collected in Hong Kong. After six months in Australia, I found that I have got more than I expected.

The biggest benefit I got from this experience was self-confidence. During the two receptions hosted by Australian government in Canberra and the Victorian government in Melbourne, I was informed that the Endeavour award is a highly prestigious award in Australia and it is granted to high achieving scholars and students from all over the world. I was invited to present my studies at a postgraduate seminar at the school of social work in the University of Melbourne. My supervisor congratulated me on my excellent work and being able to give a presentation at such a high level, given that English was my second language. At that time, I said to myself with tears in my heart, “I have made it.” It was a process of resilience and transformation.

As a research student doing study on acculturation, this was a great opportunity for cross-cultural experience. Australia is a typical western country that is totally different from Hong Kong and Mainland China. When I first arrived in Australia, I experienced great “cultural shock” due to its laid-back culture, low work efficiency and slow computer and Internet. In the first month, I did not have an office and any friends. I did not have an identity at the university. I felt like a passerby. I sat on the meadow in the campus crying and called my friends in Hong Kong telling them how much I wanted to return to Hong Kong. Six months later, I had met many new friends from all over the world, most of whom will become the best friends of my life. I have made progress in my work. I have traveled to many places in Australia, such as Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Tasmania, Philip Island, the Great Ocean Road, and Ballarat. When I look back at my experience in Australia, I am so proud of my own ability to overcome the acculturative stressors and to become a happy and confident person.

The journey of PhD study is not only to obtain a PhD degree, it is far more than that. I dreamt and I made it become true.

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