Discover The 3 Essential Life Lessons That Will Transform Your Student Life in Australia.

For many international students, studying in a first-world country like Australia is a dream come true. I was fortunate enough to have this opportunity and eagerly embraced it. While many people view life as an international student in Australia as idyllic, it comes with its own set of challenges.

Moving to a foreign country means being separated from loved ones and adjusting to a new way of life, which can be daunting.

In this article, I will discuss the difficulties I faced as an international student in Australia and how they served me as life learning lessons which could be beneficial to anyone planning to pursue their studies in Australia.

Before that, are you ready to hear a quick intro about me before I embarked on my journey to Australia? Let me take you back to a time before I stepped foot on the land down under.

Brief Intro About Me

I come from a middle-class family in Sri Lanka, with my dad earning a handsome income in a petroleum company in an oil-rich country. At the time, although I was away from my family with my grandmother and aunt’s family, I hardly missed my parents. I had infinite freedom, which I didn’t abuse.

Education and Social Life

I was studying the foundation program in Computing at an institute in the capital, Colombo, affiliated with a leading university in Australia. The next step after this program was the diploma, which I could do either at the same college or a college in Australia before entering the 2nd year at a university in Down Under.

At this time, I didn’t have many friends and liked to spend time on my own by going to the gym and browsing the internet while not studying. So, my life could have been more exciting and varied as I was also an introvert.

As time passed, I finally completed my foundation program in Computing with flying colors. So, although my life was monotonous in Sri Lanka, I was initially in two minds about whether to apply for the diploma in a Melbourne college or do it at home because:

1. If I were to go to Australia for three years (for my diploma and then the degree), my father would find it difficult to spend on my educational and living costs. In contrast, if I go there by completing the diploma, my degree will be two years, which my father can manage.
2. I doubted whether I’d survive in a land alien to me.

For the 1st concern above, since most students do part-time work while studying, I should also be able to do that to cover the expenses for the course and accommodation. For the 2nd, as many Sri Lankans acclimate to the Aussie environment, I should be able to do the same.

I decided to move to Melbourne after getting the offer letter from the college and, hence, the visa from the Australian Embassy in Colombo.

So, when I packed my bags and landed on Australian soil, I was in for a real surprise. Hence, I learned the following valuable lessons:

1.Surviving In Any Adverse Condition

It’s common for people from wealthy families in countries like Sri Lanka, India, or the Middle East to have paid servants who take care of household chores such as cleaning, cooking, gardening, and other necessary tasks. We overlook our privilege in our home countries and often take it for granted..

Managing household work, grocery shopping, and part-time jobs while studying in Australia is challenging. Unlike back home, where family members and friends helped me with difficult work, I had to take care of everything by myself in Australia. As a result, my responsibilities have increased significantly, and I am accountable for 100% of my work. In reality, I had only a 20% share of the workload for what I did back home, including school work.

So, here are examples of situations in places that taught me how to survive in adverse conditions:

Homestay With A Local Family

One of the coziest accommodation options for international students is to stay with a local family closer to the Uni. This option provides students with a room and three meals (students have to prepare breakfast and lunch while the host provides the dinner).

However, it costs $190/week at that time.

So this option sounded the best choice for me as I didn’t have to cook, clean, do laundry, or share a room with someone as I’m a person who values my privacy. Nevertheless, I soon started to feel all the bitterness of this option. Here’s why:

1. My life was limited to a tiny room when I was not in college. Back in Sri Lanka, I could roam freely anywhere in my two-story house in addition to the vast acres of land. Initially, I felt homesick, although I had college work, and felt like a prisoner..
2. Added to the above point, I was starving in the homestay with very little food, and that too with a taste alien to my liking. Whenever I discussed this with my homestay family, their responses were hostile, sometimes using Australian slang words like f**k, which shocked me.
3. My host family complained that I was untidy whenever I used the washroom. Even if I spilled the slightest drop of water when showering, they would complain. So I asked my homestay father to show me how to use the equipment for cleaning as things were different back home, and besides, I have hardly done any cleaning at home. He happily showed them to me, but when I started using them, he again complained that I wasn’t doing a perfect job with them.

What were my options? I couldn’t leave the place as I was in a strange land and didn’t talk to many people as I was also an introvert. Plenty of students from my country were sharing a house with a lot cheaper accommodation. But I didn’t wanted to live in a shared accommodation as I was concerned about my privacy, and most of the time, they would spend time going to nightclubs and entertainment activities, which I didn’t enjoy much.

So, as time went by, I spent most of my time in computer labs, some of which were 24 hours by eating outside a meal a day and drinking water most of the time.

Finally, I found someone I could trust and found a place where I had my room and cooked food (my friend promised to help me cook till I got the hang of it).

2.Getting The Maximum Use Of Subconscious Mind Power

Now, I’m no psychologist or a medical doctor. However, you can reach great heights when you feed in the correct thoughts to your subconscious mind.

For instance, if you provide negative thoughts about, let’s say, passing an exam, forming a relationship with someone, or any other matter in life, you’ll yield negative results. Exactly, the opposite is true when you feel it with positive results.

So, how can I relate this to my Australian experience?

Due to the issues mentioned above, I screwed up the 1st semester by failing all the subjects. As a result, the money that my father so tirelessly earned was wasted.

Even with part-time jobs such as Pizza delivery and kitchen in hand, I gave up too quickly because I needed to gain hands-on experience.

Little did I know then about feeding positive thoughts to the subconscious mind. So, as a word of advice to you readers, even if you feed in positive thoughts, you can’t accept positive results to take place instantly out of the blue. You need to ensure that your success happens in a step-by-step manner. In these circumstances, you must keep your cool.

3.Being Mentally Tough (Taking A Leaf Out Of Steve Waugh’s Book)

I learned it from the great Australian former cricketer Steven Waugh, who inspires me greatly. I was an avid cricket fan even before stepping on the Australian shores. Thus, it amazes me and often puzzles how great Australian cricketers like Shane Warne, Steven Waugh, and a number of others pulled matches in Australia’s favor from losing positions.

Maybe then only I understood that since you have to manage your life activities by yourself in Australia, you become more accountable for what you do. Hence, people become more inclined to finish the job at any cost by being mentally tough and feeding positive thoughts to the subconscious mind. I can relate this mental toughness to some of my challenging assignments at university.

University Assignments
It’s not an unknown fact that Australian universities set high standards in terms of the quality of education. Nevertheless, assignments were a new concept to me and some of my colleagues from the Asian region.

Some of the programming assignments were tough, and I only got a little assistance from my colleagues due to fear of plagiarism. Hence, I was mentally down when confronted with such challenging assignments and either gave up or didn’t put in 100% effort.

Later, from this experience, I realized that had I become mentally tough and read books frequently related to the subject matter, my grades would have been much better in most adverse conditions.

Wrapping It Up

I hope you got some inspiration from reading some of the lessons I learned by facing challenging situations away from home as an international student. Finally, I’m glad to say I overcame all the challenges, starting from the diploma to successfully completing my degree program.

Now, you may ask, was it worth the experience? It certainly was, and I became stronger mentally than when I left Sri Lanka.

If I can, I’m sure you can face such challenges and pursue your dreams. I wish you all the best, and stay tuned for more stores by following me here.