I begin my experience report with the help of College-Contact:
If I had the choice to do a semester abroad again through an agency, I would do it again through College-Contact. MicroEDU did most of the work for me to apply to Griffith University in Gold Coast. It was always good to know that employees like Sabine Jakobs, who work for MicroEDU, take care of you and answer any question as quickly as possible. Not only have I been very happy with the work MicroEDU has done, but so have all of my MicroEDU friends I have met in Australia.
Flights / Organization:
Like many others, I have regarding flights made fault. Because I did not know whether I would get financial support from the Bafög office, I did not book my flights and thus paid around € 400 more than others. If you want to spend a semester abroad, you should book the flights as early as possible in order to save a lot of money, even if you don’t yet know whether you can afford it, as the rebooking fees are not high. The documents for the Bafög office can actually be arranged very quickly, so that you get the semester fees and the flat-rate flight allowance back before you leave. If a passport is not valid long enough, you should renew it or apply for it again (it was not the case with me). There is one thing I would sort out beforehand (perhaps through the MicroEDU Team). The so-called TTCC. This is a card that you absolutely need to be able to travel 50% cheaper on the S-Bahn. Since this card was used in the Gold Coast from July, but could be applied for from January 2014, I wondered why MicroEDU couldn’t take care of it. As a result, we had to use the S-Bahn for 4 weeks (some a lot more) without a discount and would have saved ourselves a lot of money with the TTCC. Some students who had been helped by other agencies were already prepared.
A little tip for the long flight (mine from Dubai): Ask beforehand whether you can sit where there are no children. They could often cry in the 15 hour flight and that can get annoying after a while.
First weeks:
When I arrived exhausted, I checked into a hostel for the time being, because I wanted to look for a good apartment on site. The best thing would be to find roommates from Germany via the “Official Griffith University Study Abroad & Exchange Group” on Facebook so that you can book a hostel together in Australia and look for an apartment there if you want to study there all by yourself. It is not difficult to find an apartment there, however, as every year old Abroad students offer their apartments for the newcomers. However, you should have thought about where you would like to live beforehand. Personally, I’ve been to Surfers Paradise and haven’t looked back. The university was easy to reach from there by S-Bahn every 5 minutes and it only took about 25 minutes to get there. In Surfers you had a lot of opportunities to take advantage of the free time you had in abundance. If you could get an apartment fast enough, you were happy to be able to enjoy the orientation trip to Byron Bay without the stress.We can only recommend booking this trip, as you could get to know almost all students there. I personally got to know people there whom I can call good friends today.
Catering / study / party:
So I wanted to say a few words about these three subjects. In terms of food (actually better: cost of living) you can only say: It is significantly more expensive than in Germany if you don’t want to eat a pizza for 5 $ or the equivalent of 3.50 € every day at Dominos. So if you don’t have an abundance of money, like me for example, you often have to pay attention to the prices. There are two large supermarkets in the city or in Australia in general. Woolworth and Coles, you can argue which of the two is cheaper, but I often had the feeling that you could buy cheaper at Coles. In any case, be prepared for the fact that you can expect around $ 150-200 per week for the apartment and an additional $ 100 per week just for food. That means you get around $ 1000-1200 a month without a party or other activities.
The course itself was not very difficult in my opinion. It is more school-based and you can actually only master the exams and all assignments through the tutorials and the lectures (without further learning). The university is, however, great! Every day there is something new to see in front of the library and every second Wednesday a larger market with various inexpensive delicacies is set up, while there is a small “concert” by various acoustic singers on a meadow next door.
You can party in Surfers Paradise every day. As a student, you can get into any club for free before 11 p.m. if you buy an LCARD at the university for $ 5 (definitely worth it!). On Tuesdays and Thursdays women could drink all night for a fee of $ 10 because of Ladies Night at no additional cost. The men always had the Thursday that Vanity Corona offered for $ 1. Otherwise there was a party every day, but not cheap. You can be prepared for the fact that without an LCARD you pay around 15-20 $ entry and, for example, a beer (Corona) costs 10 $. Alcohol is not allowed on the streets!
These were the most important things I was able to take with me during my stay in Australia. If some still want to travel there after their semester, I recommend that you look for people who might want to go on a road trip. Otherwise there is only good news to report from Australia. It was a beautiful and unforgettable time with many different characters that you got to know there. If you still have any questions, I am available through MicroEDU to help one or the other.
