It is the end of my first semester at Flinders University already. I can hardly believe that I have spent over four months in Australia and what a time it has been.
My first day arriving at the Adelaide airport and being picked up by the Flinders Living team now feels like a distance memory. The city that once felt foreign and strange and impossible to get the right bus to, is now a fun and easy trip where I often enjoy the parks, shopping centre and nightlife.
The room I edged into on the first night decorated with nothing but a suitcase on the floor, is now my room and I live near the other amazing exchange students I have met during my time here. Flinders campus, despite growing numbers of eastern brown snakes, is a pleasant walk away and an enjoyable place to study, revise and relax.
Attending another University has been an eye-opening experience and I truly believe it has enhanced the studying of my degree. Flinders’ easy-going layout with cafes and outdoor seating, by no means meant the work was not challenging, through which I have developed a sense of my strengths and weaknesses and clearer direction for my future. I hope to rise to this challenge throughout my next semester also.
Through my exchange, I have met people I would not otherwise have met and we have made an incredible memories from flying to new places, to exploring regions in Adelaide, to simply a day at the beach.
I will be spending the summer travelling all around the east coast of Australia from Sydney to Cairns, and I could not be more excited and grateful for this opportunity. The adventures here far outweigh any fears or assignments or fleeting moments of homesickness and hopefully the best is still to come.
I have grown in confidence, independence, optimism and learnt that if you really try, you can make any place your home, even on the other side of the world.
If I gain nothing else from my time in Australia, at least I have gained that.
Yasmin Ballingall on semester exchange at Flinders University from Manchester Metropolitan University, UK during Semester 2, 2018