???????? There's nothing like Australia ????

Franziska and Hannah are amazed by their semester abroad at Griffith University on the famous "Gold Coast" in Queensland, Australia, and share their experiences:

Insights into everyday life as a student

The semester times here in Australia were different from those at MCI. We started at the beginning of July and the trimester lasted until the end of October. The trimester was 12 weeks long and all courses and contents were adapted to these 12 weeks. In order to make everyday life easier for the students, some courses were also offered in intensive mode. These courses were compressed into 6 weeks, and after that you are done with the entire course.

We took a total of 4 courses, 2 of them in intensive mode from week 1-6, one in intensive mode from week 6-12 and one regular course from week 1-12.

In Australia, it is common not to write exams in the master's courses, which means that you had to prepare 3 assignments per course on what you had learned. Sometimes it was a challenge to coordinate all the assignments from all the courses. All in all, however, we found it good to be able to directly apply what we had learned.

Great experiences

Since the semester was over by the end of October, we had plenty of time to explore Australia as well as New Zealand and Indonesia. Highlights in Australia were definitely diving at the Great Barrier Reef, a sailing tour around Whitsunday Island, and hiking in the Daintree Rainforest, one of the oldest rainforests in the world. The "Aussie way of life" was also a very great experience, because here in Australia everything comes easy.

Challenges

Australia is a very diverse country that is full of surprises. One big challenge is definitely the time difference, which make communication with family and friends at home quite difficult.

Australia is not always sunny and warm, so when we arrived in July we were surprised how cold the Australian winter can be.

Conclusion

What we would advise everyone to do: DO IT! Buy the ticket and get on a plane to the other side of the world - it pays off 100%.