Felicia Buday Kourie, Nursing programme, La Trobe University, Australia

My name is Felicia Buday Kourie and I'm studying nursing at Jönköping University. Since I was a kid I have always wanted to work in another country abroad to experience a new country and a new culture, and to also get more experience in my future career. So when I started at JU and I saw that I now had the chance to study abroad I thought that this was a great opportunity for me. When it was time to choose what country I wanted to apply to it was a no brainer for me. I have always wanted to travel to Australia and now I got the chance to both study there and travel. When I got my acceptance letter I was so excited, but I knew that I had a ton of things to do before I could book my ticket. There was endless of paperwork's and doctor’s appointments. A tip if you are going to do an exchange somewhere is to start with the application process earlier, and look at what vaccines you need to take for your placements even before you have started to apply to your chosen university, because there are some vaccines that you need to take 6 months before leaving. Something to think about is that everything you need to do is your own responsibility and you need to do everything alone and look everything you need to know up. And also save a lot of money so that you could travel around in Australia and in countries close by, because it is not every day that you are at the other side of the world.

La Trobe University is located one hour with tram from central Melbourne. At first I lived on campus at one of their accommodations, but after a month I moved to St Kilda with some friends. The reason why I moved from campus was because all my classes were at the hospital that I had chosen and it was in the centre of Melbourne, It took me about 40 mins with tram from St Kilda and 1 hour and a half from the University to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where all my classes were. And one more reason was because I wanted to be close to the beach. I personally loved to live outside of campus but the positive thing from my stay at campus was that I met a lot of new people. You can choose were you want to live. If you decide to live outside of campus, then you need to find your own accommodation.

During my studies at La Trobe I had two courses. One course was about Mental Health and the other was about Nursing in Time Critical Context. I thought that both courses were very interesting and I learned a lot from both of them. I also had two clinical placements during my studies, one was at a Mental Health facility and the other was at the Neurology ward at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. I loved both my placements and I was so excited to be working as a nursing student in an Australian hospital to see what differs from the hospitals here in Sweden and those in Australia. It was a very educative placement overall and I learned a lot that I will benefit from in my future career as a nurse.

This trip has taught me so much, both personal things and also things that I’m going to have a use for in my future career. The best memory I have from this Exchange was from all the traveling that I have done and also all the amazing people that I have gotten to know. But one memory that really has stuck with me is when me and my friend Sofia travelled to a place called Gold Coast. We had so much fun and the place was just perfect. I really recommend people to do an Exchange semester. It is something that you will always remember and you will have the time of your life travelling and meeting people from all over the world. Australia is a great country because there is so much to see. I hope you choose to do an exchange and if you have any questions or want to know more about anything you could contact me at Felicia.bk@hotmail.com.

Felicia Buday Kourie