Hi! I’m Emma and I’ve been an international student at Burnside SHS for 9 months now. When choosing a school I decided on Burnside because I liked the idea of it being a more rural, smaller school while still having the beach not far off. The biggest perk for me was that because of the size of the school and their international program I was able to form meaningful connections and lifelong friendships with my coordinators, teachers and importantly Australian students. The program here being smaller pushed me outside of my comfort zone so that I actually got to know Australian students and spoke English instead of staying in a group with other international students from your country and mainly speaking your first language.
I still remember from when I was looking at doing an exchange year how annoyed I’d get when everyone was saying, “This was the best year of my life”. I thought it was cheesy and over exaggerated. Now I’m tempted to say the same. I’m not going to lie doing an exchange year has it’s up and downs, but the ups are so high they make up for all the lows. Especially if you end up at such an amazing school where during the more difficult times, I got all the support and help I needed from my coordinators, for which I’m incredibly thankful. They have helped me find the perfect host family for me who really has become like a second one to me. I’ve got two little host siblings who are the cutest and host parents who feel more like friends then parents with whom I can have so much fun but who have also helped me with struggles here.
I also choose the school because of the subjects they offer. My highlights here are dance (a new love of mine), hospitality (where we’re currently doing a barista certificate) and Marine Studies where I was lucky enough to go on an amazing field trip to Heron Island in the Great Barrier Reef. I would encourage everyone to choose one of the many subjects you don’t have at home and dare to try out new things.
Additionally, I have had the opportunity for many different trips: Like a camping trip with a friends host family outback to the western parts of Queensland. An excursion to Fraser Island, day trips with my host family to for example Stradburg Island, as well as long weekends of camping in the area. I also did a trip from Sydney driving up the coast and just spent a long weekend in Melbourne. In two weeks from now I’m going on EQI’s Outback safari to Uluru and then driving from Alice springs down to Adelaide.
Generally, I had amazing travel opportunities and got the chance to see a bit more of this amazing, diverse, huge country.
Many of you probably are looking at the sunshine coast because of surfing: From the school every international student gets a free surfing lesson and we then decided to continue the lessons outside of school. I then made the decision of borrowing a board from a friend/surf shop for the year, which is a good way of having your own board while being at the sunshine coast but not having to spent too much money on something you probably won’t be able to use back in your home country. I also got lucky with my host family living in walking distance to a surf beach so that I get to practice my surfing quite often. In Grade 12 the P.E. class is also doing surfing at Burnside for a term, where we got to go surfing once a week.
I hope this little blog can help you with making your decision.
