By: Brie White, Staff Writer
On any given day, I sit on the trams of Melbourne, Australia’s crowded city streets next to strangers, some of whom read F. Scott Fitzgerald collections, some whom have Mohawks of astronomical proportions and some whose iPhones beep incessantly, evidence that their lives are much more interesting than I can imagine. This is not a Wofford student’s territory.
The University of Melbourne has 55,000 enrolled students and sits in the center of the city, which lives and breathes fast-paced lifestyle. The lecture halls can hold up to 1,000 students, and for a printing service, you usually wait in an electronic queue of at least 70. Tutors teach seminars and tutorials weekly, lectures meet but don’t require attendance, and secretaries, not professors, handle the submission of work.
After long days of academics, navigating, or sightseeing, I make my way to the house I share with nearly 20 other Americans. The home sits in a suburb just 4 kilometers from the city and has quaint qualities such as a fireplace and a comfortable living room, as well as some not so quaint qualities like a kitchen, bursting at the seams, shared between all the inhabitants and heating that fails regularly. Toto, this isn’t 429 N. Church Street nestled comfortably inside my cube anymore.
This place, this experience, may be as far off from Wofford as I could have gotten. However, Wofford has equipped me to study with adaptability, handle culture shock –and boy, is there culture shock—effectively and appreciate the opportunities and lessons that an experience like this is giving me. We’re at the halfway point of the semester, just through midterms, and what was foreign and startling is becoming more settled. I have met many people, from random strangers in the city to fellow students at the university who have not a clue that Spartanburg, S. C. even exists. They have never heard of Wofford College, and they cannot appreciate the values that an institution such as this has instilled in my and my fellow terrier’s personhood. An integral part of my life is foreign to them, somewhat like how this experience is foreign to me.
Despite this not being my normal territory, my typical academic environment nor my comfortable dorm room, I feel as though I can speak for myself and other abroad students when I say that Wofford, a home away from home in itself, has well prepared us for this fish-out-of-water undertaking. Melbourne,Australia is not only a huge, huge pond, but also one in which I know I wouldn’t be swimming without Wofford to guide me here.
