Luke's Exchange to Binghamton University | USA
“Do the toilets flush the other way?” is the first thing my brother said to me when I first skyped after just arriving at my hotel in New York City after a total of 25 hours of flying. After almost 38 hours of being awake (because who sleeps on planes?) it was not a question I was mentally prepared to answer. And after almost 6 months of being on the other side of the world I still don’t actually know the answer.
The past 6 months I have been on an adventure of a lifetime. I have made friends in countries all around the world and seen places that I never would have even imagined seeing a year ago. Binghamton University, located in upstate New York, was probably not everyone’s first choice but if I had the chance to do it again I would have an extremely difficult time choosing another university, just because it would be a chance to see all of the amazing people that I met again.
I arrived in New York in the middle of their summer and I thought, this is New York right? It’s always cold in New York right? Wrong. My first week in New York was in 26°C+ and I managed to get sunburnt on my first day. But putting all that aside it was an amazing week and a great way to start of my trip. I spent that first week doing all of the typical tourist things just to get it out of my system. So when the day finally came to make my way to the bus terminal to catch the bus to Binghamton I felt as though I knew Manhattan like the back of my hand. It was sad to leave the city behind but I was excited to see what my new home for the next 5 months would be like. 3 and a bit hours later, which felt like a heartbeat compared to my 14 hour flight to JFK, I arrived in Binghamton and though it didn’t look like much I would give anything to go back. After pacing around the bus terminal for about 30 minutes I figured out which bus I needed to take to get to the University, as I came to find that taxis aren’t too common in the middle of the day unlike in NYC. It was exciting to finally be in the place that would be my home. Soon enough I met up with the rest of the exchange students who would also be studying along with me for a semester and some even for a whole year. And a week later you would have thought that we had known each other for years. We were a close group and I think that we all stuck together because we were all experiencing the same thing, being in a foreign place, so far away from home.
These people, from all around the world came to be my family while I was away. We were quite a loud group though but it was alright, whenever we felt that people were looking at us we just said ‘Sorry we’re foreign’ and moved on. And probably being Australian helped a lot with making new friends whilst I was there because they all think that Australia is this magical land where we all have a pet kangaroo in our backyard and we all know how to play the digeridoo and throw a boomerang. I found that a good icebreaker was seeing how ridiculous a story I could make up about Australia and seeing if they would believe it and most of the time it worked. But even after the charade was shattered they still wanted to talk to me just to find out what it is like in Australia, and as a result I have a whole bunch of new friends from America.
But of course I was also there to study which I did a lot of, and it wasn’t as daunting as I first thought that it would be. The workload was manageable if you took the time to make sure that you got it done which also wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and because of it I was able to some travelling on the long weekends that we had. I went to Toronto for 4 days and then I also went to Boston for a weekend. And both of those places are amazing but my favourite trip that I did was over the thanksgiving weekend where I flew down to Orlando, Florida and spent thanksgiving with some family that I have there, and I am the first person in our family to ever meet these people and still to this day I am amazed at house generous these people were. They let me, a complete stranger into their house and took me in as one of their own and let me share in their celebration of a holiday.
This trip has been absolutely amazing and I feel like that I am not the same person who walked through the departure gate fighting the urge to turn around and give my Mum one last goodbye hug. It had been such a rewarding experience and looking back now there is only one thing that I regret, not doing this sooner! Now that I know that I can get adjusted to just about any situation I feel that travelling is not just going to be something that I think I can do, it is now something I know I can do.
If you are on the fence about going on exchange, just do it. Take a leap of faith. I promise you, you won’t regret it. You can’t even imagine the kinds of things that you will get up to, the kind of people you will meet and the friends that you will make. It is also a great excuse to travel and see more of the world. After I finished my semester in Binghamton, I flew to London where I spent a few weeks travelling around the UK visiting friends and family, I also saw this as an excellent time to see more of Europe so I decided to do a contiki, which was an absolutely amazing way to end my 6 month stint of travelling. Sure travelling seems overwhelming and I certainly thought it would be but once I decided and started my journey I found out that it is quite manageable and there are going to be challenges but they are greatly outweighed by the positive experiences that you will have. So you shouldn’t be asking yourself ‘Do I want to go on exchange?’ You should be asking ‘Where do I want to do on exchange?’
- Luke studied abroad at the Binghamton University in New York State, USA
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