As much as I hate mentioning, this little advice here never seem to work. Common phrase that I've been hearing from students --- "everyone studies there!". And typically, it applies to most students who end up in University of Melbourne. No offense, but it's true. Imagine 15 of my peers going to UniMelb and me being the only one heading to Sydney... Homesick and friendless? Bulls**t!! You'll get over it!

Something for everyone, especially Form 5 grads, to think over... You can add this to the first post and delete it if necessary, Geminist.

The term "culture shock" is perhaps no longer a stranger to international students studying overseas. It's generally what individuals face when they first get into a new environment - be it with or without friends they've already knew. The only difference, I guess, would be such that if you already know someone beforehand, you tend to overcome the culture shock process in a shorter period of time.

Having an open mind is very important when you enter a new environment. There are things which are normal and usual in the environment of which you find strange. Well, the thing is you don't have to convert to it in order to fit in socially, but be ready to be open-minded and accept it as you go along.

Speaking of socialising, your social life is as important as your academic's (i.e. studying). Academically, you might think it's just getting straight A's and being the smart alec. But in the real world (i.e. when you're working), social skills are much more important than you could ever imagine. There will be a high level of communication between colleagues, clients, and superiors. These communication must be effective in order to avoid conflict which might deteriorate the relationships, of which would affect the business! So as you can see, bad communication skills not only prevent others from understanding you, but can also create plentiful of misunderstandings! Well, you might not believe me as for now, but I'm speaking from my personal experience, so I'll let you decide...

So what's the big deal about culture shock? Personally, it's no big deal. I've had it, I've reasoned it, and I think I've handled it rather well. But of course, I've seen other people struggling to get used to the new environment but reluctant to change a fair bit just to adapt to it. And that is exactly what I'm worried about (maybe with a little bit of disappointment). Everytime I listen to these stories, I feel sorry for them, but also think that they could have done much better than they what they have been doing all the while.

What's important is to mix around. The message is, you don't have to know someone beforehand to survive in a new environment. In fact, when you're alone, you will get to know more people because it forces you to socialise. It forces you to make first contact with strangers. I must point out, however, that it depends entirely on your own personality and mental strength. Can you bear that sort of pressure? Can you accept that challenge? Are you willing to make a change for once in your life? Some students can't take that sort of pressure of being alone, and they tend to break down mentally, which in turn gives them a really harsh time getting through the bad emotion as well as uni work. I can say that I'm the type of person who can get along pretty much with anybody, unless of course people refuse to bother me.

Communication is another thing. Some people, even some of my friends, just refuse to open their mouth and start a conversation. How bloody difficult is that?! Just say something like "Hi! How's it going?" and you'll be on your way! And never answer questions in a Q&A fashion. E.g. "What's your name?" "John" and silence thereafter... Add another question to it! Spice up the conversation, pile up the questions, you'll soon find something which is of mutual interest! And particularly international students, some of them refuse to speak because they are shy and they are shy because their English isn't good enough. And all I can say is, bullsh*t. If you never speak, you never get it wrong; and if you never get it wrong, you never learn from it; and if you never learn, you never improve, and then you're screwed for the rest of your life.

And if it's of interest for any of you, I've written a feature article on The Backbench about international students issues. The article can be retrieved here.

That's all for now.

Not a problem at all, Geminist! Just hope that it's relevant, and that I've not jumped too far ahead for our Form 5 grads.

Well, what can I say? Your friend's case is one of the extremes I've heard of. There's a student who came to Australia a year ago, and didn't speak a word for the first 2 days upon arrival. He locked himself in his room, sat on the bed, fully shocked. I think he's okay now, enjoying his life in Gold Coast, as of what I heard from my colleague.

I did Foundation Studies here in Sydney, back in 2003. One of the main reasons for that was because I knew I'll need time to settle down and get used to life here, so I'd rather start doing that before uni starts, when the workload starts to get really heavy. It all depends on how you look at it. I treated Foundation Studies as a prep year for my academic life as well as my uni/social life. It's my 3rd year here in Australia, and I'm still learning, but everything's settled and I'm doing well.

Personally, I think I had no problems with culture shock because I'm used to being independent, just like you. Culture shock didn't really get me until I got involved with the Aviation Society and we were discussing what to organise for our members. To my surprise, BBQs and pubcrawls are "must have"s! Inevitably, they love drinking and BBQ. And part of socialising is done in the pub over a couple of beers. Not too much of a problem for me, I guess - I'm used to it.

Culture shock is a very nice topic to look at, especially when people drops in their experience and get a discussion going with it. You do learn a great deal from within.

just to add to cynthia's comment:

different pre-u courses have different features to suit different ppl, so choose one that suits yourself. for example, a-level is 100% exam-based. there's no assignments or whatsoever. so if you're the kind of person who can do well in memorising facts, then by all means go for a-level. but if you're the kind of person who don't do well in exams, but is capable of handling assignments and projects, then go for something else such as SAM or foundation studies.

In Australia, every state has a different STPM-equivalent test. NSW HSC is the STPM equivalent for NSW state and SAM is for South Australia. They basically mean the same thing, but probably of different syllabi.