Maintain a willingness to adjust and adapt to your Australian environment. Here are some tips for starting conversations and making friends with Australians, as well as making appointments and ‘queuing’ up.

Starting conversations
Australians respect others’ privacy. They rarely start conversations with people they have just met by asking about personal details.

Australians are often keen spectators of sports like cricket or ‘footy’ (the Australian Football League). Many people often talk about recent footy matches, so get along to a game if you can.

Making friends/creating networks
Friendships in Australia generally start through sharing or simply talking about common interests. Talk to as many people as possible and try to start conversations whenever you can.

Develop your own network of useful contacts to make friends. Consider joining a university club or student volunteer group. FUSA has a range of clubs you can get involved with, right here at Flinders. Visit  https://fusa.edu.au/clubs/ for more information.

Appointments and queuing
Making appointments is a normal Australian practice. At Flinders, you need to make appointments to attend the doctor or counselling service, for example.

It’s important to be on time for any appointments you have at the University, or outside of the University. Inform if you are running late or unable to make it.

Queuing up for a service is a common practice. Do not jump the queue and be considerate to the elderly, pregnant women and the people with disabilities.