Heidi Law

University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Exchange to Monash University, Australia

Two months ago, while I was back in Hong Kong, frantically trying to fit all my clothes into my suitcase, I would never have envisioned that my experience in Australia would be such a transformative and rewarding one. Not only did I have a great time and meet lots of great new friends from all around the world, I have also advanced myself academically and have become a more adaptive person to new environments and challenges.

One of the key challenges I first met in Australia was adapting to the different learning environment here. When I first arrived at Monash, I thought I would have an easy time. When I looked at my timetable, I found that I only had to go to class eight hours a week, which is significantly less than what I have in Hong Kong. I was so happy, I thought I could spend the rest of the time wandering the city and having lots of fun. But I was very wrong. Here, the learning does not stop when you step outside the classroom. All the students are expected to take the initiative to learn more and read more than what’s being taught in class. Besides attending the lectures, students have to do their own research in the library in their free time. This is quite a major change for me as I am very used to getting detailed lecture notes from the professors and all I have to do is study the notes. I am not quite used to the idea of spending my own free time searching around in the library.

During the tutorials, I was shocked by how much extra knowledge the other students had. I couldn’t join in the discussion at all, because I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. I constantly wondered: Is that even covered in class? Where did they get that from? But very soon, I learnt that other people do their own extra readings and I realized I have some catching up to do. I started to work my way through the maze of bookshelves in the library, digging up relevant information that would help me. Soon, I knew what everyone was going on about, and was able to join in the discussion and make a meaningful contribution to the tutorial class.

This is one of the major things that I learnt in Australia - adapting myself to new environments and accepting that people do things a little bit differently from home. This applies not only to the academic setting, but to other aspects as well.

I am sure a lot of other exchange students must feel the same way as I do when I first arrived here. Being new in a foreign place and feeling intimidated by all those foreign people, you start to feel scared for this reason or that, hesitating whether your spoken English is fluent enough to communicate with everyone else. Because you’re scared and not feeling confident with yourself, you keep quiet and don’t start conversations with people or you only talk to people from your own university and stick to your own little group, but that’s the worst thing that you could do on your exchange. You’re here in Australia to open yourself up to new experiences, new challenges and to meet new people from different corners of the world. There is no point in staying in your comfort zone.

The other most important thing that I’ve learnt here is that I must step out of my own comfort zone and take the initiative to embrace whatever challenge lies ahead. No matter the activity - whether it’s just striking up a random conversation with people in a language you’re not familiar with or trying out a completely new activity that you’ve never heard of before - one needs to have the courage to take that vital step. New opportunities keep coming up, and I have learnt to overcome doubts and moments of hesitation and step forward to try out new things. This is the most precious lesson that I’ve learnt in Australia and I will take this important lesson with me back to Hong Kong as it will follow me and continue to help me for life. As long as you step forward, the opportunity will be yours and the experience is bound to be rewarding.

So that is exactly what I would like to share with everyone, especially all the other new students that will come to Australia later on.

I would also like to express my gratitude to the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Awards for giving me this invaluable opportunity to study here and widen my horizons.

The scholarship has definitely helped me to get the most from my time in this wonderful country of Australia. Thank you!

© Copyright 2018 CK Group. All rights reserved.