Total immersion
by Andrew Lees
UniSA is famed for providing overseas students with an excellent
study environment here in South Australia, so it’s not surprising we’re
just as keen to send our own students overseas.
International Studies/Business Studies student Amy King says it’s the experience of a lifetime.
Amy has just returned from Japan’s Okayama University after 12 months on an international exchange as part of her degree program at the School of International Studies, and says UniSA’s exchange programs offer students an excellent chance to really live the international experience, particularly in Japan where there is a wide range of partner universities.
“I’ve wanted to go on exchange since the beginning of my degree, and I was ecstatic when I found out I was going,” Amy said. “Meeting international students at UniSA has been great and I wanted to have that experience myself – to live with people from another culture, to get to know another culture.”
It’s the element of total immersion that makes international exchange so beneficial, and Amy said initial difficulties with language were easily overcome.
“Classes were taught entirely in Japanese, and for the first couple of weeks I thought, ‘What have I done?’. “But to be honest, it was the best thing for me. To be thrown in the deep end, you learn so much faster… I was lucky enough to get a teacher who valued debate, and we were discussing Japanese issues in Japanese, which helped my understanding of them enormously.”
UniSA’s Dr Dave Chapman agrees – he’s coordinated UniSA’s Australia-Japan exchange program for two years and says he’s received excellent feedback on the course from both Japan and Australia. He said anyone who was studying Japanese language could go to Japan as part of their studies.
“It’s all about international experience,” he said. “Not only do students learn a language and culture, but they network with students and staff all over the world. A lot of students come back with personal and professional contacts from all over the place.”
King said she hoped to research Japan-China strategic relations, and her observations while in Japan helped convince her to return upon completion of her degree.
“It’s very interesting when you look at other countries in the region that are very critical of the Japanese and think they are going back to militarism,” she said. “But when you speak to Japanese people, it couldn’t be further from the truth. There were peace banners everywhere I went, particularly after Iraq.
“Students were horrified by the fact that their country was going to war. It was very beneficial to experience that first-hand.”