Bethan Rowsby, Geography, University of Sydney.

As I am about to fly to Asia, for a final trip before heading home, I have been reflecting on my year away from home and in my opinion there is no greater opportunity for reflecting than at sunset.

This particular sunset was captured on top of my friend Daisy’s roof, which we ran up to see, abandoning our dinner in favour of this glorious pink sky.

When discussing how we would describe our exchange year to our friends back home, my flatmates and I were jokingly seeing how many typical clichés we could use: “the best year of our lives”, “I did things I never thought I would do”, “this year has changed me”, “I learnt so much about myself” and we concluded we would rate the year “10/10, would recommend”. Whilst funny, each cliché definitely applied to us in different and personal ways. I do feel different, heck I definitely sound different at the very least. I have somehow managed to pick up a slight but apparently very noticeable aussie accent. Far out! I am not sure whether to feel good or bad about this, I think it depends in which country I am in!

Academically, I feel like Sydney was a really good place for me to spend a year. The system allowed me to take subjects outside of my usual Geography courses and I loved the chance to take university classes in Anthropology, Biblical Studies, Religion and Indigenous Studies. These are the classes I will particularly remember from my time here; learning and having an insight into other subject areas has been valuable to me and I feel has rounded out my knowledge that bit more. This is not to diminish the quality of the Geography classes here, but I will be going back to a whole year of wonderful hardcore Geography modules in Manchester after all. 🙂

I truly would recommend to anyone thinking about doing a year abroad to go for it. Yes, there have been hard times but I wouldn’t change it because the best parts have been so good and I couldn’t imagine not meeting the people I have met here.

I’ll leave you with those final cliché words and I’ll check in next when I’m back in Manchester!

Bethan