“My name is Melissa and I am from Jersey in the Channel Islands. I am at Cromwell College, so I live on campus which makes everything much easier. I am studying Primary Education and chose to study here at UQ because I have family in Brisbane and wanted a bigger adventure as well as to see more of the world. In my course we are thrown into practical work in a local primary school, which is daunting but extremely exciting as I love being in front of a class and it makes a change from lectures and tutorials. I have about 12 contact hours a week and we are advised to do as much extra work as we have contact hours. This may seem like a lot but it is certainly needed to achieve a high standard of work. This first semester I didn’t have any exams, much to the dismay of my friends, though I did have a lot of high percentage assignments. This can get stressful, but as everyone is told at school, if you start it early enough it’s easy to finish on time, and this has never been more true than at university!

“Living in a residential college was the best decision I made in this whole process and I couldn’t recommend it more. I made friends very quickly as we lived together from the start and there is always someone around. Everyone is so friendly and it allowed me to find a community to fit into which was important as I was far from home.

“Brisbane is a wonderful city with excellent public transport, which makes it easy to get around outside campus. There are plenty of shopping centres and markets, cinemas and other entertainment, and the restaurants and cafés are great for a meal out with friends. The night-life is also so much fun. Being at college is great for your social life as many events and nights out are organised for us. Throughout the year we have casual and formal events, sometimes with the other colleges, sometimes just ours, which range from dress up to black tie. For these we get partners and a lot of the time they have to be someone in a different year or someone we don’t know as well which helps us get to know everyone around college. Being in a college definitely made the move across the world much easier and I managed to get a close group of friends, a best friend and a boyfriend by week four! Everything seemed to fall into place and I have never been happier.

“I found out about Study Options through my school and got in contact after looking at universities on their website. They then helped me through the entire process, sending me forms, giving me advice, answering questions, sending off my applications, corresponding with my universities and ultimately getting me to where I am today. I can’t express how much they did for me and couldn’t thank them enough. They were always prompt with their replies and their advice was clear and the steps were easy to follow.

“I hope you find what you are looking for in Study Options. My best advice would be always ask, you probably won’t have been through a process like this before and it is a big step so they understand you have a lot to learn and a lot of stress at this time. Good luck with your applications!”