International exchange in the Asia-Pacific
by Rodney Magazinovic
As Andre Petrillo might say, it takes an international exchange
student to know one.
Petrillo (pictured) felt right at home among the 35 delegates at the recent University Mobility in Asia and the Pacific (UMAP) International Conference in Taiwan.
After all, the UniSA Bachelor of Applied Language and Intercultural Communication student knows what it’s like to be an international exchange student, having studied at Kansai Gaidai University in Osaka, Japan in 2005.
Placing students in inter-national exchange programs is a large part of UMAP’s work. The organisation, which is dedicated to the internationalisation of higher education and providing maximum access to educational resources in the region, has placed more than 100,000 students from 30 countries in exchange programs over the past decade.
Petrillo says the Taiwan conference focused on the role of international student exchange and global education – areas that are particularly relevant to UniSA, which boasts one of the largest populations of international students in Australia.
"The chance to attend a conference on international study in the
Asia-Pacific region provided many opportunities
to examine the other delegates’ attitudes to different countries,
cultures and languages," he says.
"Different cultural backgrounds will inherently lead to different issues developing during an exchange so it was great to meet so many people from countries all over the Asia-Pacific region and study the facets of each of their particular education systems, cultures and lifestyles."
Petrillo will complete his degree in 2007 and is contemplating postgraduate study at UniSA.