James’ travelog

After my announcement from a couple of months ago that I’ll be going to Australia to study for a semester at the University of Melbourne, I haven’t really written any updates on the going away process. I’ve been pretty busy with it though.

Let me give an outline of what the idea is: I’m going to live & study in Melbourne for five months as an exchange student, and follow a number of very interesting courses at their top university. The semester starts at the end of February, but I’ll have to be in Melbourne earlier, as the introduction period for international students begins the 16th. Apart from the educational value, this exchange will probably/hopefully also give me some opportunities to travel around Australia (and maybe Asia?) when the semester ends.

I must say that going abroad via a university exchange has been quite a hassle of administrative procedures so far. After getting selected by the University of Amsterdam, you need to get accepted by the University of Melbourne (which takes time). Apart from filling in huge piles of registration forms, I have taken - and passed gloriously! - the obligatory Test Of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and have been writing dozens of letters, collecting all sorts of official documents, sending emails and faxes, making phone calls, etcetera, for all sorts of official purposes (which I won’t elaborate on at this moment because it’s pretty boring stuff). Nevertheless, I’m positive my stay abroad will prove to be worth all the effort.

The latest news is that I received my acceptance letter from the University of Melbourne a few days ago (yay!). Now that I have been officially accepted as an exchange student, I’ll soon receive the official Conformation of Enrolment too, with which I’ll be able to apply for my student visa. And once that’s happened, I’ll be just about ready to go to Australia.

Apart from these official paper works, other things I need to do are:

• Buy a plane ticket.
• Talk with my student adviser and discuss how this exchange will influence the remaining part of my bachelor studies at the University of Amsterdam.
• Find someone to rent out my room to during my absence.
• … (there are probably many more things that should be on this list, I just can’t think of them right now)

As my exchange is coming closer and closer, I plan to regularly post updates on the status of my departure preparations on this travelog.

This entry was posted by James on Thursday, December 29th, 2005 at 10:31 am and is filed under Australia. You can skip to the end and leave a response.