Been here nearly 9 months now and having a great time so far. Once again, I can’t stress enough how important time management is if you’re going to have a successful year abroad. Balancing studying, working, socializing, traveling (a must do), and sleeping and eating (occasionally forget to do this) is crucial. If anything, the main thing I will take away from my time in Melbourne is excellent time management skills.

Also, bring as much money as you can, because you’re going to want to travel and that certainly isn’t cheap. Whilst I won’t be able to provide a definitive answer to the question ‘Is a Study Abroad year worth it?’ till I leave. At this moment in time; my answer currently stands as: YES!

Choose somewhere far away that will force you to really learn to sort stuff out for yourself and deal with situations that arise. The life lessons learned here are invaluable and the opportunity to experience another culture and new people, a new way of life and making new friends is just invaluable. On a sidenote, employers really like this kind of stuff, so that’s an added bonus.

Next time I’ll cover what Australia is really like, I finally feel like living here for 9 months has prepared me to answer that question!