Recipient of the Joshua & James Haglund Memorial Peace Scholarship
"My growth from the first day to the last has surprised me and I have never felt so confident in myself."
—Victoria
To be honest, I was very scared to study abroad, and although many people have comforted me by saying it was a normal feeling, I remember crying at the airport when my mom dropped me off. I was nervous about making new friends, being alone, adjusting to a different culture and educational institution. However, that feeling went away when I heard the pilot announce that we had arrived in Sydney, Australia and that’s when I was filled with excitement...
I was surprised to meet so many Americans and I was lucky enough to be in the Queen Mary Building (QMB), which is where most international students stay, so there were students from Spain, Germany, Ireland, South Korea, USA, and many more places. We all became really close with one another and would go grocery shopping, to the beach, cook together, and lived like a family. QMB was very different from the dorms in the US because we all shared a big communal kitchen and had to buy our own utensils, pots and pans, bedding, and everything else we needed. We also had to cook for ourselves unlike the dorms I’m used to where there’s a dining hall.... I was given the reputation of being the midnight baker because I was always baking snacks or cooking something late at night and many people knew me through that activity.
Sydney was such a beautiful place and I was able to visit the National Royal Park which took an 8 hour bus and ferry ride to get there and a 9 hour hike both ways. The waters were so blue, clear, and warm... In Sydney I was also able to go to the iconic Opera House and watched a Mozart Opera show with 3 other friends. It was my first time listening to opera and it was such a magical experience...
Apart from Sydney, I also solo traveled to Byron Bay and Melbourne and that was my first time solo traveling. It was really scary, but I absolutely loved and grew from the experience. Byron Bay was so sunny and I went kayaking... Melbourne reminded me of New York City with many restaurants, museums, and galleries. Unfortunately I visited on days where popular places closed and it was rainy/gloomy so I mostly stayed indoors. I tried my best to eat as much food as I could; eating alone made me self-conscious, but I learned to embrace it as I noticed it was very common. A restaurant in Melbourne that I found on Instagram had one of the coolest dishes. It was a Japanese restaurant that served wagyu ramen, but they torched the meat in front of you...
Overall, I had a spectacular experience and made many new friends and memories. My growth from the first day to the last has surprised me and I have never felt so confident in myself. It was through solo traveling that I realized I wanted more to do with my life and how a 9-5 pm office job wasn’t what I wanted to do for the next 30 years. A woman I met in my hostel in Melbourne told me that she visited 52 countries while working remotely and I was amazed by that possibility. I’ve also come to accept that it is time I lived my life for myself and do the things I was so afraid of. I honestly feel that studying abroad in Australia was what I needed to come out of my shadows and thrive... Although I spent a semester in Sydney, the months flew by like days and by the time I was feeling at home, it was time to say goodbye. As I start my education back at home at the UofM, the skills, relationships, lessons, and character I developed in Australia will be utilized and continued. Thank you once again for allowing me to experience what seemed like an impossible opportunity and I am forever grateful to have been one of the recipients of the Joshua & James Haglund Memorial Peace Scholarship.