Category: Advice

Traveling While Abroad: Make It Easy on Yourself

Published on by taylorjohanemanLeave a comment

I’d say, for the most part, that I’m a pretty organized, prepared person. I always have important documents in one place, I “measure twice, cut once” in every situation, and I’m the queen of “what if.” Extra socks? Check. Have I packed a reading book, music, cards, and a coloring book in case I get bored? You betcha – even though I’ll never get bored enough to get through all of those items. Usually, I’m prepared with items of actual importance too, i.e. a copy of my online visa.

Cut to mid-semester break. For the past month, I’ve been planning a two-part trip: 4 days in Cairns, Australia and 5 days in Dunedin, New Zealand. In preparation, I printed out all of my flight information, as I’m more inclined to have physical copies of things, rather than electronic copies. Although I had only printed these out to keep dates and flight times straight in my head in the days leading up to my trip, I decided to shove them in my bag as I flew out the door to catch my first flight. Technically, I didn’t actually need my flight information – these weren’t my tickets and I had my flight numbers on my phone ready for check-in.

My experience in Cairns and traveling to Cairns was delightful. No issues, lots of sunshine and warmth (finally – a day above 60 F), and a great reunion with a friend from DU. But leaving Cairns took a bit more effort and involved enough frustration for me to learn a little travel lesson.

My friend and I showed up to Cairns International Airport relatively early in the morning. Sleepy-eyed and deprived of coffee, I walked up to the Virgin Australia counter to get my ticket and check my bag. A few seconds after handing my passport to the woman at the counter, she began to ask me questions about my travels. I was a bit surprised, as I would only expect to be interrogated at customs, but nonetheless I answered. She asked me why I was in Australia, my plans for New Zealand, and other standard questions directed towards international travelers. Following this, she asked me for my flight itinerary. Perfect. My flight information will come in handy for this. But she then asked, “Ma’am, when will you be reentering Australia?” In my sleepy state, I struggled to answer.

“Um…I fly back on the 2nd”, I answered. She gave me a weird look and replied, “The 2nd of October?”. Shoot! *palm to face moment* This is when I wished I had gone to sleep earlier or bought coffee that morning.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I meant the 12th…the 12th of September. I guess I just forgot to put the 1 in front of the 2.” I smiled as my cheeks turned red in embarrassment. It was obvious she wasn’t very happy with me, and it didn’t get better when she asked for my visa and I told her it was an online visa. She then proceeded to make me pull up my visa on my computer and finally handed me my ticket.

I learned a few travel lessons from this. One, always have your flight itinerary – having that definitely made this situation better. Two, always have a copy of your visa, even if it’s an online visa. If you don’t want to carry that around, then you better be able to access it with your phone, computer, or tablet. Three, make sure your brain is awake when you go to the airport. This is especially important so you can remember the simple things, like what dates you’re reentering a country that has graciously taken you in.

In the moment, I was a bit flustered, but I know the Virgin Australia representative was just doing her job and enforcing the law. Thank you, Australia, for letting me be absent-minded every once in a while.

Go to the International Orientation!

Published on by emmygrabLeave a comment

I am three weeks into my program at UOttawa and things are going mostly well. I am inundated with work and being an English major means the majority of my work is reading large portions of several books at a time. I am exhausted, but my body clock is adjusting to the two hour difference, which is nice. I am also settling into my dorm and getting to know my surroundings. I meant to write this post a few weeks ago, but I had to hit the ground running when my classes started. But now, I have some time, so let’s do this!

I attended my International Orientation for all incoming exchange students about two weeks ago. It was mandatory for me to sit through the five hour presentation; however, my time was rewarded with a UOttawa reusable bag and a Subway sandwich, which I was totally fine with! I was wondering why they scheduled the entire morning for this presentation. What exactly did we need to know that takes five hours to describe? Well, it’s actually more than a few things. In fact, the International Office talked to us about a ton of things.

Before the presentation started, all of the incoming exchange students (including myself) packed into a 200, maybe 250, seat lecture room. The diversity of exchange students around the room was impressive, more than I had seen at DU. There were students from all over Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Sweden, Germany, Japan, China, South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast . . so many countries that are so different from the States. It was so cool to see! The International Office introduced themselves and gave us their contact information since they are all of our lifelines while we’re here. They talked about the school, gave us a campus map, and discussed registration details. We then had special speakers come in and talk about the Writing Center, Health Services, and the Fitness Center. It was nice that they showed us all these resources from the get-go.

Finally, they discussed the importance of plagiarism prevention and student-professor relationships, which was interesting to me that they purposely discussed these things. In terms of the plagiarism, I am not certain if other universities around the world do not emphasize citing sources or if they do it at all, because they showed us everything from how to cite sources and how to determine if sources need to be cited. Maybe some students needed a reminder to cite their sources in their work or maybe some students were learning for the first time. It’s interesting that the International Office emphasized a whole section of their presentation to academic fraud, but unfortunately they did say that at least one incoming exchange student is accused of academic fraud per year at UOttawa. DU makes a big deal of academic fraud and citing sources, so it was nothing new to me.

The other fascinating topic was student-professor relationships. The speaker, whose name escapes me right now, was saying that the American, Canadian, and Australian university systems are fairly similar and that students from these specifics countries would have little difficulty assimilating to the academic schematics of the lectures, discussion groups, etc., of UOttawa. Though, students from other countries, such as the Netherlands, may have some difficulty with the “new” look of academics in Canada. The speaker went on to say that here the professor isn’t viewed as “a god” (her words) and that the student-professor relationship is still formal in nature, but way less so than in countries where professors are viewed with higher authority. While this isn’t a problem, Swedish or Danish students may have trouble with the casual nature of the lectures and discussions. They may not realize that they are actually allowed to ask questions or go to  office hours to have a conversation with their prof. It is most definitely a cultural shift for those students. In my case, the concepts of office hours, lectures, and discussions aren’t as dramatic to me because DU operates in the exact same fashion. I am grateful in that sense that the adjustment to the academic system in Canada hasn’t been a hassle. Knowing how college classes operate here already allows me to dive into my work a lot faster than I would if I went something completely exotic. But if you’re up for that challenge, by all means do it!

Although the presentation was a little long for me, I’m ultimately glad I went. The speakers cleared up some concerns I had about various things and I became more confident in my new surroundings. The International Office said to email them if we had any questions at all, even if they didn’t pertain to International Office issues. For example, I emailed them about how to ship items back to my home and they helped me right away. There is a certain amount of autonomy that comes with this program and it certainly isn’t for people that aren’t confident being independent or doing things on their own.

But, the International Office will help if you ask them, which is a tip for anyone studying abroad anywhere: asking for help never hurts. Till next time!