Hey! My name is Will, I am in my third year at UTS and am on a global exchange at Osaka University for the next 6 months. What a hectic past 2 weeks! Osaka offers a rich blend of tradition and modernity from intense nightlife to beautiful landscapes, temples and shrines.
Orientation day gave me a chance to experience a tour of the campus which showed a vast array of facilities such as a large open field for all kinds of sports, a tennis court, a huge library and a shuttle bus to other campuses. This was also a great opportunity to meet some of the other exchange students and make new friends that are new to the country.
I live a five-minute walk away from the Toyonaka campus where all my classes are held which is incredibly convenient. I am taking all elective subjects, so I focused mainly on Japanese language and culture as my choice of units. The University offers subjects specifically for international exchange students so they are taught in English and have a more relaxed teaching style. I also chose a Japanese language subject for me to learn Japanese while I am here and already after 1 week of classes, has already been useful for me in everyday life in Japan.
The things that I am enjoying the most here are food and social activities! We have organised within the exchange group that we have a “family dinner night” on Sunday nights where 2 people cook for everyone, while we sit and have a beer and conversate about nothing. The quality of food in Osaka is incredible and very rarely not delicious. I find that even in the early hours of the morning when I want a midnight snack, the 7/11 down the road still provides top tier hot meals for relatively cheap. I found that the best restaurants that I have eaten at so far are ones that are hidden in an alleyway.
Initially, I was very concerned about the language barrier, but there is a very relaxed and accepting vibe to the people in Osaka. When I practice Japanese with people in restaurants or convenient stores, they help me with my pronunciation or general vocabulary while they practice their English simultaneously. There have been many times where I have had a funny conversation with a local over google translate.
My number one top tip for students in the future is to get out of your comfort zone. There will be many times where you will be anxious about something, but I can guarantee you it will pay off. The best experiences that I have had so far are ones that I am initially very nervous and uncomfortable about.
Come to Osaka! You won’t regret it!
Will Caligiore Bachelor of Science in IT/Diploma in Professional Practice Osaka University Japan
I was lucky enough to participate in the 2023 Winter Global Short-term Program of Nanyang Technological University.
At Nanyang University in Singapore, I felt the high-quality teaching methods and excellent teaching concepts 👍. The teachers and classmates were very friendly, and they arranged a project team dedicated to Help solve the questions and problems we encountered while studying at Nanyang Technological University❤️, and provide a variety of outing activities🎇. During the period of studying in Singapore, I fully appreciated the cultural diversity of Singapore and tasted various Singaporean delicacies 👏🥨🍝🥧🍈🥭, and also participated in their National Day celebrations!
Here I feel the free and rich living environment, as well as Singapore’s full support for green and environmentally friendly life. Singapore is a garden country. There are flowers everywhere you go, the streets are very clean, people are polite and have good etiquette, and life here is very safe. You can make full use of this one-month short-term study opportunity to visit Singapore’s famous attractions and activities, such as Merlion Park, Gardens by the Bay, Sands Entertainment City, etc.🌲🌺💐🌴☁️, which will definitely keep you entertained🪐🔥.
You can also meet exchange students from various countries around the world, allowing you to open yourself up to meet and integrate into different cultures.
Xincheng Cai Master of Business in Marketing Nanyang Techonological University, Singapore Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
My global short program experience in Spain was truly something that I will never regret. The connections I made with people have extended beyond the tour and are rich in shared excitement for landscape. Going to Spain allowed me to learn about landscape projects that photos cannot capture, gaining professional inspiration that I could get nowhere else in the world.
This was particularly true of Estudi Marti Franchʼs Girona Shores Project. We were able to access places and the wisdom of people that I never would have been able to on my own. The organisation, knowledge and enthusiasm of the subject coordinators were greatly appreciated. There were places of such immense beauty that I couldn’t stop pinching myself about how truly special of an experience I was partaking in. The cultural immersion activities of sharing food and bike riding along the waterfront complemented the content of landscape and architectural knowledge beautifully as I came to understand the city in its entirety better.
The city cross-section structure of the Barcelona tour allowed for insight into the city that went deeper than the typical tourist experience. Having the presence of local guides took me beyond where my own research would have allowed and gave a holistic presentation of both the surface level of the designs as well as the enrichment of its people and ecologies. Presenting the city through an interdisciplinary lens was particularly helpful in my professional development as I had little experience considering cities’ landscapes and architecture.
The projects we visited blurred the boundaries between professions and helped us to imagine new futures for each of our disciplines. Both the successes and failures of Barcelona and Girona are highly applicable to a Sydney context as we face many similar climate challenges and universal barriers. The innovation and constant push for change and fresh ideas inspired every one of us to feel that we had the position to change, with much of the innovation in Spain coming from recent graduates.
I would absolutely recommend the Global Short Program to everyone! The lessons I have learned and the memories I have made will be life-long. I have become a more confident, resilient, and independent person as a result of stepping out of my comfort zone and doing something I would never have imagined myself doing before.
Emma Loch Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (Honours) DAB Global Studio (Spain) – Landscape Architecture Global Studio B Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
My name is Rosa and I am a second-year journalism student on exchange in London. I’m studying at City University of London in a part of the city called Angel, a borough filled with quiet alleyways, restaurants and of course a pub on every corner.
When it came to subjects, I chose to drop down to three rather than four for my time in London. I’m taking a journalism subject called ‘Visual Journalism’ which I was able to match as direct equivalent to the UTS subject ‘Multimedia Features’. I’m also taking another journalism subject called ‘Data Journalism’ as a restricted elective. My final choice was a subject called ‘Popular Music in Britain’ from City Uni’s performing arts degree, which I’m taking as a free elective.
This subject explores the evolution of popular British music from post-WWII to present day, covering genres of punk, grime and even ‘acid house’. My class will even attend a few local live music events selected by our tutor, to use as case studies in our final assignments. I can safely I’ve heard of worse field research.
Just about every exchange student I’ve met at City Uni has chosen to use one or all of their subjects as free electives, where it offers the opportunity to explore something outside of your degree. I’ve met a medicine student taking history subjects and a fashion student taking economics subjects.
During one of the orientation sessions at City Uni we were very gravely warned by a lecturer that the teaching style and academic culture in the UK is much harsher than most. Whilst this does hold true in some aspects, where late assignments are an instant fail here, I have found it relatively easy to adjust to. I’ve found a few comforting similarities in the teaching style at City Uni, in their use of online learning platforms, the smaller size of tutorial classes and the practical approach within the journalism department.
However, this lecturer’s bold warning was accompanied by some great advice, to approach things with the assumption that they will be different. In this way, he said, you will find yourself appreciative of the similarities rather than disappointed by the differences.
The exchange experience will definitely challenge your expectations or assumptions around whatever city you choose, accept sooner rather than later that what you have envisioned is probably slightly left of the truth.
London is not all red phone boxes and rows of neat brick terraces, I was hugely surprised by the distribution of social class and wealth. If you walk a hundred metres in any direction from those terraces it will feel as if you’re in another part of the city, whether it be council housing, street markets, Bangladeshi food stores or vintage shops. Central London seems to have anything and everything within every borough.
In terms of meeting people at university, I have definitely noticed that international students tend to group together and socialise by nationality, where I found myself surrounded by Australians from Brisbane in my first week. Although it wasn’t what I expected I have loved having this group and the familiar cultural humour they provide. As time goes on, I am slowly meeting Brits, Canadians, Spaniards and people of all different backgrounds through classes and my student accommodation. I’m looking forward to the rest of my semester in London and beginning to see why this city is the most common destination for Australian ex-pats.
Rosalie Griffith Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) City University of London United Kingdom
After years of university overshadowed by Covid-19, I was bursting at the opportunity to expand my horizons. To me, this meant leaping at the opportunity to study abroad.
After backpacking Europe in 22’, Berlin was a city that I felt really inspired me creatively [the gritty art scene, nuanced design, collaborative working spaces] and I could see a potential future establishing a career there. This lively and multicultural hub of innovation called to me when choosing which university to apply to, and with the tick of a box… Berlin became a reality.
Landing in Berlin after three weeks of jam-packed European travel, I had nerves about how the course would be…and a lot of washing. After night one of settling into the hotel, meeting my roommate, unpacking for the next weeks and having some much needed rest, a group of us met in the plaza and walked to the main building of the university for our orientation. A 17th century lecture hall filled with international students- it was certainly an overwhelming start. After many hand shakes, introductions and lemon sodas, we jumped straight into the classroom with Professor Sander [whom I adored] from Florida University. The course structure felt quite familiar as he was outlining how the next two weeks would play out- it was remarkably similar to those two week BCII sprints that our cohort had completed over the last three years. Feeling at home with the process and marking my journal with due dates, extra information and notable group excursions I was ready to turn these goals into a reality.
Within the first few days, a lot of fast paced team building took place. Unusually, 15 of the 22 students had already been working on this brief for two weeks and us 7 ‘newbies’ had to put in our preferences as to which group [with entirely different problem spaces] we would join. I joined a group focusing on developing a solution that tackled the sustainable distribution of groceries and the relationship between consumer and producer. While we did a lot of the brainstorming in the classroom, we also took the group work out into the Berlin biome, with Sander’s encouragement. We addressed some of my journaled goals without even realising, as we sat in the local park, snacks in tow, both sharing laughs and culture, whilst inching toward potential solutions.
In the spirit if saying ‘yes/ ja,’ I hastily signed up for one of our innovation excursions to the EUREF Campus which is the home to over 5,000 employees all working on the common goal of powering Europe “sustainably, collaboratively, openly and jointly.” We were given a guided tour of the campus which was impressive in it’s design- dotted with countless electric charging points, solar panelled roofs and food hubs. I entered with very little knowledge on the engineering behind efficient energy creation and after seeing the different generators first hand I felt a little more aligned with the engineering behind this amazing technology. You could really believe that Berlin is one of the leading innovative cities just walking on this campus. The most memorable technology In my opinion was this ordinary looking street lamp, upon closer look, was actually a charging station for electric vehicles [Fig 2]. I think it was the combination of clever, urban immersion with supreme functionality that inspired me.
My team, comprised of two computer science students, two engineering and myself as design and BCII became a really interesting dynamic when we started to tackle the prototyping and feasibility sections of our project, which eventually was known as ‘Zero Waste, One Route, Two Smiles. Very quickly, chaos became routine, as our class would meet in the breakfast area to share a ‘guten morgen’ and a coffee and stroll to class as one. I felt myself already forming strong connections as well as learning about each individuals culture- what life is like at their home university, their travel aspirations and their experience.
I would use the spare afternoons after class and the weekends to visit different parts of the city. Some highlights included; trawling through the racks of a four storey thrift store, going to a naturalist lake in the middle of a forest and sharing a ‘prost/ cheers’ on the rooftop at sunset with my classmates. Wow, even writing about those moments, I am close to tears, happy nostalgic tears.
On the last day of the course I sat down with Professor Sanders for half an hour to gain his insight into the dynamics of potentially living and working in Berlin, as well as the potential to pursue some kind of entrepreneurial endeavour. One of the most potent things he said to me during this conversation was, “Sophie, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, you can ask for forgiveness later,” and it was this potent line that really concreted the fact that working abroad in Berlin 2024 was a very real pathway. Referencing my journal, he also noted that foreign workers in Berlin make up almost a quarter of the population and reassured me that most modern workplaces are happily English speaking when necessary.
At the end of the two weeks, I noticed that the idea of ‘studying’ I had before commencing the course was very inaccurate. Whilst I did spend late nights completing and designing the presentations for my team, Sander himself emphasised that the ‘studying’ aspect was more-so about exploring, networking and using the time out of class to enrich our understanding of the Innovation and entrepreneurial space. I felt it was those abstract conversions to and from class, the ramblings over dinner and the chats on nights out that taught me the most. It was almost as if- as soon as we clocked off from formal class- we were able to discuss the problem space in completely different ways.
At the award ceremony in which we were presented with our ‘graduation’ certificates- it was when the shudder of the camera went off and I had my classmates next to me that I felt a wave of accomplishment but more-so gratitude for the opportunity. I learnt so much in this compact space of time and made lifelong friends, connections and memories that I will forever cherish in my Moleskine journal.
Sophie Whitehead Bachelor of Design in Visual Communication & Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation Engineering Innovation – Technische Universitat Berlin, Germany Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
In December 2023, I was blessed with the opportunity to complete some units of study in Yogyakarta, Indonesia to study cross cultural design. This would be my second time leaving the country, the first time which was way back in 2015, so I was extremely excited to experience a new culture and country. Me and some friends travelled to Indonesia prior to the start of the course to explore Jakarta and had then taken the train to Yogyakarta.
For the course we were tasked with interviewing a local business about how they implemented sustainable practices into their business as a group. I was in a group with two lovely peers and the business we were assigned was Palem Craft. The company focuses on designing home décor out of local materials. We were able to talk to both CEO’s about their design process and it was really interesting to learn how they would take waste materials from their design process to create new designs which use the waste. As you can see, they have beautiful products.
As a part of the course, we were able to get a guided tour of the Borobudur temple, the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It was a beautiful sight and it was very interesting learning about how the teachings of Buddha were engraved into the stones all around the structure. Interestingly, a few of Palem Craft’s lamp shades are inspired by the shape of the stupa. The picture above shows an opened stupa, showing the buddha statue within.
We had free time to explore around Yogyakarta during the course as well. Nearing the end of the course I was able to go explore the Jomblang cave. You repel down a large opening and hike through a cave to reach this beautiful opening above the cave. Even simple things such as walking around the city was really enjoyable, coming across random landmarks and just taking in the surrounding culture. You can clearly see why Yogyakarta is considered the culture capital of Indonesia with the large amount of temples and cultural landmarks within the city.
This opportunity to go to Indonesia was amazing and I’m extremely glad I was able to partake in this course. I was able to make plenty of friends over there and also discovered my love for travelling. I plan to go on many more trips after this and deeply encourage anyone to take on any similar opportunity if presented it. Being able to study at another country, a new environment and new culture is an experience like nothing else.
Jerry Zhang Bachelor of Design in Architecture & Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation DAB Global Studio (Indonesia) – Global Studio A Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
Although I’m only a couple weeks into my semester, I cannot describe in words how phenomenal my experience at Korea University has been, and just what amazing memories I’ve already made in South Korea. My Global Exchange experience to South Korea has been much more than simply studying – it has been about creating unforgettable memories, meeting awesome new people and immersing myself into the rich Korean culture.
At Korea University, I am currently in the Media and Communication faculty, undertaking restricted elective subjects. Considering I am in a foreign country, knowing very limited Korean, I was extremely nervous about adjusting to classes and to the new workload. But my worries aside, the teaching style has been really similar to UTS! All lectures and tutorials are run in English and are extremely engaging and thought provoking, the professors are aimable, and the workload is evenly spaced throughout the semester (meaning you have the time and liberty to explore other parts of Korea with your friends in your spare time)!
Apart from studying, I have been having a blast exploring other parts of Korea – namely Jeju Island and Nami Island. In fact, I’ve already planned a trip to visit Busan at the end of the year! Through these trips, I have made some unforgettable memories and made amazing new friends – who I would have never met if it weren’t for the Exchange Program. In all honesty, it’s hard not to make friends when you’re constantly surrounded by like-minded people in your tutorials, dormitory and Buddy groups.
I would say, the most interesting part about studying in Korea so far would have to be the crazy sporting culture! There is an ongoing traditional rivalry between two Korea University and Yonsei University called the ‘Goyeon Games’ – where each university compete against each other in various sports, including: baseball, basketball, ice hockey, rugby, soccer and more! There is even a team of professional student-led cheerleading squad, which was next level! You would never be able to experience something of this kind back in Australia, and just being able to fully immerse myself into the unique Korean university campus life has been surreal.
My only hot tip for future students interested in studying at Korea University or Korea in general would be to GET YOURSELF OUT THERE! Plug yourself into the Buddy program, meet up regularly with your fellow UTS exchange students, sign up to live on campus and just have fun!
Hannah Pyun Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) Korea University South Korea
In January and February of 2024 I went on the Global Short Program to Switzerland. It might just have been the best elective I could possibly do at university. It was my first time going to Europe, and so this opportunity was perfect for me to get to explore a part of Europe as well as it being a part of my study and with a great emphasis on architecture.
I absolutely loved the architecture of Switzerland. It is extremely old which just makes it more impressive. From the large cities like Basel and Zurich, where there are medieval streets and cathedrals to the villages tucked away in the mountains like Vals and Fiesch with their wooden vernacular buildings covered in snow.
Despite the Tour being more focused on landscape, we still saw an impressive number of projects just for their Architecture. We also visited the Vitra Design Museum across the border in Germany, where designer chairs and furniture were produced and displayed. There were many architecturally designed buildings there, done by famous architects, and an exhibition of chairs organised by colour, filled with a complete mix of styles, materials and age.
We jumped around Switzerland as we made our way from city to village to city, and we of course made our way to The Alps themselves. They are impressive on a completely different scale. It was my first time seeing any mountains of that scale, and also my first time seeing snow. It was exhilarating and beautiful beyond words.
The Alps of SwitzerlandThe Alps of Switzerland
There were around 16 other students on the tour, and it was great that they were all in architecture or landscape degrees. We were all able to appreciate the projects and offices we visited and learn from each other. Going into the tour only really knowing one other person, it was great to make friends with the other students on the tour, and it is still great to bump into them at uni, to see how they are doing and to reminisce about this trip.
I absolutely loved this trip, getting to explore an entirely new and completely different country and culture from anything I had yet experienced was brilliant, and has definitely helped with my confidence in exploring and travelling. After this I even went on to Barcelona on my own for another few days, which was just as amazing, before coming back to Australia. Being able to do all this as well as receiving 6 credit points was an absolute blessing, and completely worth the extra costs such an elective entails.
Rosalie Windus Bachelor of Design in Architecture DAB Global Studio (Switzerland) – Design Study Tour Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
Bianca King Bachelor of Criminology and Bachelor of Forensic Science FASS (Indonesia) – Criminology International Internships New Colombo Plan Mobility Grant
Erika Pacchiarotta Bachelor of Forensic Science and Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation University of Leeds, United Kingdom Global Short Programs Travel Scholarship
