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Call anyone knowledgeable about Australia

S

slowintrepid

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 18, 2003
Messages
266
So I made a post a while back about where would you study abroad if you could go anywhere. Well I have narrowed it down to australia but there's still so many choices.

so far:

Bond University (Brisbane)
University of Canberra (Canberra)
No school yet (Sydney)
No school yet (Melbourne)

all seem like really interesting choices.

at my current college in the US I am very satisfied Academically but socially the student body is lame (music college) so esentially I'm going away with the main focus being on having a blast.

things that I'd like to check out while In australia are:

Surfing
Skydiving
The Rain-forest
Partying in general
and anything beach related in general

I just wanna go have fun clear my head then come back to the real world.

I just don't know what choice of location would be good for me. they all seem really cool. and anyone that I talk to that has been gives where they went rave reviews, but they're all different.

also I'm going in Jan - April which I'm pretty sure is the end of their summer / beginning of fall. if that makes a difference, I do not want to be cold that is one major preference, I was born and raised in new england cold is the last thing I need lol.
 
sydney might be boring ive heard

melbourne i hear is the best combo of natural beauty, urban fun, and also u of melbourne is one of Aus's better research institutions
 
Sydney or Melbourne are your best bets if you're after sun and parties.

I live in Canberra...if you're going to Canberra I'd suggest going to ANU instead of the University of Canberra. ANU is one of the best Uni's in Australia and one of the premier research institutions. If you have the choice, go there.

But...Canberra is still quite a smallish, quiet, public-servant kind of town. It gets quite hot in summer (which ends at the end of Febuary) but winter can also be freezing cold. There are no beaches in Canberra and the party scene is nowhere near the size of Melbourne or Sydney. You can skydive though!

I live in Canberra and I don't mind it but if I were you I'd go to Melbourne.
 
I'm at the University of Sydney. It rocks!

The question is are you looking for somewhere that is strong academically, or a good place to party or both?

Firstly, I'd scrap the idea of going to Bond University. It is one of the few private universities in Australia, which just means that you pay a fuckload to go there, and it isn't any better (in fact it's nowhere near as good as) than even the average uni's here.

I echo what satricion says, if you want to go to Canberra, then go to ANU instead of UC... although UC has a better party atmosphere, it is a relatively average Uni, while ANU (the Australian National University) is one of the best in the country. But yeah, Canberra is not a big place (300k people) and can be boring if you don't know people, but if you go there and live on campus, you should be fine :)

Sydney and Melbourne are where all the action is at! They are big cities (Sydney has ~4.5mill and Melbourne ~3.5mill people) they have some great uni's and some average uni's.

Sydney has much better beaches than Melbourne. Canberra has no beaches as it is inland.

While you are here, you will have heaps of opporunity to go and visit most places, by taking a week during mid-semester holidays and heading up to the Barrier Reef or inland to Uluru, or whereever you want to go :)

So academically (as in the good uni's to learn stuff at) head to:

University of Sydney
University of Melbourne
University of New South Wales
Australian National University (ANU)
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

Or anything around there.

Another option is Brisbane, which is close to the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast, which have fantastic surfing and beaches, but Brisbane, while being a large-ish city isn't kinda like a big country town at times.

You have lots of options, so if you give us a bit more information as to what you want, we'll be able to help you more :)

CB :)
 
Well about me.
I'm 22 years old, I live in Boston, I'm really into electronic music culture and all that, but I'm super immersed in it, and surrounded by all artsy music people, which is cool to some extent but after a while it makes me wanna puke.

This whole study abroad thing came to me when I went and visted my friend at Umass Dartmouth, its a small Uni in the middle of no where student body of about 7k. All we did was meet regular college kids and drink in the dorms and just have fun, and I know most of you are thinking (that's what you want?) well its just that I've never had that, at my school everyone is a bit older, and super career oriented, I wanna go somewhere where there is a party or something going on everynight and I could really careless about the classes. Academically I'm super satisfied at school, I'm just banging out my core stuff that I never finished (english, history, social sciences etc)

as far as partying goes, I live in downtown boston so I'm very used to the whole city thing, and I've done the bar and club thing (I also went to the winter music conference in Miami so I'm all set bar and club wise)

I think I just wanna be with regular stereotypical college kids to get a break from the musicians and the arts kids and get this out of my system.

Also I'm recently out of a 4 year relationship and the 60% girl ratio at Uof Canberra sounds nice.

If this is making me sound like a douche bag please forgive me, I'm really a very intelligent interesting person I just need a semester of crazyness.....

now obviously I could just as easily go to Umass and get drunk all the time and have fun with my friends from home, but I figure if I'm gonna take a break from my school and I can go anywhere, why not get out of the country a bit, and Australia is supposed to be an amazing place.

if anyone has any advice they'd like to share I'd really appreciate it. is jan-april even a good time to go?

thanks
 
I recommend Bond University, its actually located on the Gold Coast, which is GREAT for beaches, fun, sun, we have 1 big rave every year (jan) and another huge music festival that has attracted bands like nirvana, chilli peppers, foo fighters, metallica etc. Your only 40minutes drive away from our states capital (Brisbane) that has a big rave probably every 3 months but something decent every week - fortnight. Jan - April is a GREAT time to come to Queensland :) Bond University teaches some good stuff, check out their website, depending on what you want to study. Full of people that want to party. Queensland the state is a great way to experience Australia. In my opinion, its the best state to live in, in Australia. If you want to check out Sydney, fly down there for a weekend imo, don't live down there for a semester.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_Coast,_Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane,_Australia

Hope that helps.
 
Heh... it may sound like you are a douche bag, but hey... it doesn't matter ;) You've basically finished everything you need for you major and need to do some bullshit courses, why not have some fun :)

Yeah, there is a good ratio of chicks to guys at Uni of Canberra... but you are in Canberra. Seriously. I lived there for 21 years and was fucking glad to get out... but there are some good parts of Canberra, and the uni scene ain't that bad.

In Australia, the 1st Semester starts from about the end of February/early March and goes till the end of June (well that's when all the exams usually finish anyway) so you'll have to factor that into your plans...

CB :)
 
lol I'm sooo confused, so many different opinions.

oh btw to put the girl ratio thing in context. my current school is well over 70% guys so that's kinda why that statistic seemed appealing to me.

So lemme ask this to sum it up, If you could really care less about what the school is like academically and put a lot of emphasis on having a fun semester, where would you go? I'm pretty much at the best college in my country (if not the world) for what I wanna do academically so it really doesn't matter where I go abroad in that aspect
 
Go to Melbourne or Sydney. They're the largest cities and you'll have more stuff to do, both in terms of nightlife and touristy things.

If you do go to Melbourne (which I would highly recommend! Melbourne rocks) make sure you pick a school that's in the inner city, as a number of universities here are located up to an hour out of the city centre. Melbourne University and RMIT are both well-located, although RMIT can be a bit dodgy - it's very well-respected in certain areas but if you're looking at studying social sciences, go to Melbourne Uni instead.

Monash, LaTrobe, Swinburne and Deakin are the other main universities, but their main campuses are all in the suburbs (I think - although Swinburne isn't too far away). If you're coming to experience a foreign country and have a good time, it's going to suck to be stuck having to go to class out in the middle of nowhere.

I can't comment on Sydney schools, but Sydney itself is a lot of fun. Bigger and flashier and prettier than Melbourne, but Melbourne has a lot of funky bars and clubs and artsy stuff. Both would have good weather in the time you're thinking of going. Just make sure you avoid Canberra. It's boring as hell.
 
^^

Yep.

Go to Melbourne or Sydney and go to a campus that is in or near the city, and isn't way the fuck out in bumfuck Idaho (not that we have an Idaho... and fuck I'm glad ;))

So in Melbourne, go to Melbourne Uni or RMIT

In Sydney, go to Sydney Uni, University of Technology Sydney, or University of New South Wales.

Out of those, I'd pick the University of Sydney because it is a big campus (35k+ students) big bars on campus, heaps of good accomodation and good bars/pubs around everywhere. It's central, has a great feel to the campus... old sandstone buildings, heaps of fun :)

I may be a little biased though ;)

Check out the websites for all the unis and maybe give them a call...

for example: www.usyd.edu.au for the University of Sydney... I'm sure you can find the others if you have a quick look around :)

CB :)
 
If you live on campus at the uni residences you won't have a problem meeting people to drink with.

Resi's people drink like nobody I've ever encountered before or since. It's amazing. It doesn't matter where you go, live in campus and you'll be right.

If you want raves don't come to Canberra. There are very few here. Sydney or Melbourne both have heaps, plus good universities and beaches. Sydney uni has a great reputation academically, and parties are around regardless.
 
Nice nice, so then lemme ask this, what IS a reason to go to Canberra. I'm wondering why my friend gave it such amazing reviews.

also are there rainforests and what not in mel/sydney, that was one of the big things about Brisbane.

also also. what would you say some of the major differences between Melbourne and Syndney.

and for good measure...... out of all these schools listed which one is the most notorious as the party school?
 
No uni's over here really have a reputation as a party school as such... not like in the States... basically you will find parties everywhere. You will find them more often if you can get into on-campus accomodation.

Rainforests start from about the mid North Coast of NSW and upwards... so from about half way between Sydney and Brisbane upwards... but you'll almost definitely have time to go check them out at some stage of your time over here... either before uni starts, or during mid-semester break, or after uni finishes before you head back home...

Major differences between Melbourne and Sydney... fuck... eh... there are a whole heap of threads about this in Aus Social... you could do a bit of a search around in there and in the Aus Social Archive for peoples opinion on the matter...

But basically, Melbourne is said to have a bit more culture, more of an artsy, cafe style of life, while Sydney tends to be a bit more fast paced. They both have their high points and their low points, but both are fantastic places to be :)

Canberra is great if you have a great group of friends, there are heaps of important buildings to go and have a look at/in like the War Memorial, Old and New Parliament Houses, the National Library etc... it's got a fair bit of touristy type stuff to do, and is quite pretty in some places, but it ain't the best place to spend a whole heap of time... but then that does definitely depend on the people that you spend your time with :)

CB :)
 
Melbourne.
Melbourne uni or Monash uni
you can do all your partying, surfing and skydiving in Melbourne
but if you're into rainforests its probably worth going to Cairns for a bit of a break. theres a town north of Cairns called Port Douglas thats absolutely beautiful for say.. a weeks break. and you can go on tours up through the daintree rainforest, crocodile cruises on the daintree river & reef tours on the great barrier reef - if you're coming to australia you might as well see the GBR
 
I am from the states so i am no help...maybe we can copy this to Australian social, would it work there cb? it might get even more help for him?
 
I reckon just leaving it here should work :)

There are about a billion threads in Aus Social on the differences between places, and a quick search will find them :)

CB :)
 
cool!

slowintrepid- why dont you also go to the Australian Social forum and search as CB suggested, you might find info there that noone gave here :D Just an idea!
 
Living in Canberra, I really can't think of a reason to come here of all places if you're from overseas.

I mean...if I were you I'd go to Melbourne personally.
 
I highly recommend University of Wollongong (in NSW). Its up there with the others academically, has good surfing and a party atmosphere, close to Sydney too.
 
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