What you need (to know) for a study abroad semester/year:

Hey everyone! Its me again, writing about my next adventure: a study abroad semester in Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne! Today, Ill write about the preparation of a study abroad semester and how to plan such a huge event. Hope you’ll read it to the very end;))

If it comes to planning your study abroad semester, its quite difficult to manage many things at the same time.  As a university-student, I know how it is and thats why I share my personal experience with you, which surely will not end by writing the things down, since my study abroad semester begins in two and half weeks. But..I’ll try to give you an overview of how you can achieve the most important thing, which is: to have the greatest experience in your life-time by studying in a foreign country and get to know a different culture and its people.

The first main thought which should appear in your mind, is the “where” and the “what” question. Where is referred to the country you intend to study in, which is  the most weightily issue in planning your year abroad. And “what” concerns the  university and the subjects.  So if you have a country in mind, that support your idea of studying at some good national/international university you should go for it. That means, this certain country (in my case: Australia;)) should not only be safe for you to live in, but should also provide a wide and good range of university programs.  Like I mentioned in my previous posts, I gonna study Humanities and Arts in Melbourne, at the La Trobe University and had in the very beginning also some difficulties to choose a better option for myself.

You see, in the beginning you need to decide which country is the most inviting for you and whether it offers you, as an international student f.ex. a high living standard or rather your student budget can bear with the living standart costs in that special country. To speak of Australia for example, I did not know that Sydney, which was my first choice (I must admit it still is..)is more expensive than Melbourne, the second largest city (in terms of population etc.) in Down Under. And according to its high prices, most of the universities were(are) not affordable for me. So that made the decision pretty clear. I decided to choose Melbourne, since the universities there also have a higheducation level like  most other  Australian institutions. Unfortunately this process takes more time than I thought before.

Lets assume, you know exactly were you wanna go or have at least an idea in mind, and that means you are ready to the process of choosing a university, which should in fact have a good reputation or at least your courses from your home country. If you dont need the credits and just wanna study for a semester in a foreign country, you can choose any subjects you’ve always dreamed of.  (If I had the opportunity to choose any course I want…gosh..) Anyway as a study abroad student/ or “Gasthörer” in deutsch) you can choose almost every subject from a wide range of courses at an Australian university. This is insane, I know, since the variety of courses/subjects is incredibly huge and you can choose f.ex. Photography and Popular Media or Australian history etc etc.

To decide what program to choose is simple: If you need the credits like me, you only can choose those subjects from a certain course which you need for your initial course(f.ex.Bachelor Of Arts–>Australian University–>Bachelor Of Arts and then choose from the Arts faculty your preferred subjects).  But don’t worry, you can choose 3 to 4 subjects, and from 4 subjects you can choose one subject from a completely different course. I decided to try out “Popular Media and Photography“. Or something like this from that category. BUT…and there is always a “but”: before you start to choose and to check the programs or universities you always need to have some savings…In fact, a lot of cash… You need to have in mind, and this only concerns countries like the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia: for each semester at an Australian university you should afford between 7000 AUD and 10000 AUD (–>Australian Dollar: 1 AUD=0,57 EURO). Like you noticed its also a  matter of money. Ill tell you this on purpose that late, ’cause you should also know that it is a huge amount but if you have some savings, (if not, I really encourage you to save some money f.ex. from working, “birthday presents” from parents, grand parents etc.) please dont be “encouraged” by the amount I stated, the experience has much more weight than the money. Im not in a position to force you to something.. Ill just advise you to save some money before starting the applying thing etc…(And usually you need to have the tuition fee money before you apply, you only get the offer letter from the universities when you paid the fees!) I know that its a lot of money…but if you are willing to make a dream/goal  come true,  don’t hesitate and do it!

Step three is also the final step…or almost the final. Its about the applying. In Germany I was supported by a  German&Australian office, which help German students with the applying, translating certain certificates and sending it via email to the Australian universities.  From the site link below you can choose the universities (only Australian & New Zealand on offer). It ranges from the tuition fees cost to alphabetical order or differentiates the universities by cities / states.

index.php After you chose your university( you can choose up to four universities)  you  can send them(Apllication Form etc. photos, other documents the universities need from you etc.) by post to the Ranke-Heinemann-Institut-address. Its quite nice since you always stay during that process in contact with the institute, which calls itself: Ranke-Heinemann-Institut( here the link for German students, who might read and be interested in this great staff: )Institut bzw. Sekretariat für Australien/Neuseeland

–> And the best thing is: you dont pay a cent! Its all for free, since they are paid by the Australian universities and these universities are paid by its international students who pay a lot more than the domestic students! Yeah, this fact hurts a bit… Anyway…Im getting of the topic again.. Well, we now presume, you have applied, the process of the evaluation of your application form takes usually not that long (in terms you applied for a Australian university: then in general it takes: 2-4 weeks). Then you’ll need to do the last move:

Getting the Acceptance Offer (sometimes also called “Offer Letter”)which comes first after applying. When you paid your tuition fees for one or two semester, you get the final offer, which is called : CoE=Conformation Of Enrolment! This is the final step and with this letter you can apply for an Australian Visa(for German students: Non-award Sector-TU 575)). If you complete these last few steps you can book a flight. Of course you can do that before, to save money, but in my case it was quite difficult, since I applied for four universities, located in both cities: Melbourne & Sydney. Of course if you know which city you’ll want to choose, then that’s just fine. Nevertheless, please take the travel cancelation insurance always by booking any flight to Australia/NEW Zealand or any other distant country/continent, believe me its really important for such long distance flights(especially when you’ll be away for such a long period-no one knows what happen in the future). You definitely would not regret it.

Okay, after all the explanation of how getting to your/our main goal, you’ll be right there where I am now: Waiting and trembling^^ By they way, here are some nice pics of Melbourne’s best attractions..

I hope I gave you a short (okay it was quite long..)but a good overview and you could read it through without getting all confused…:)

Once again, everyone is invited to leave a message or a comment. That would be really nice;))

Thanks for that!

Byeeeee!!!!