Hello! I'm Clever Apple ! !
Today, I will write about my study at Wollongong university in Australia.
Today's topic is the course "Master of Education (TESOL)"!
The picture above is a bar called North Wollongong Hotel !
The atmosphere is great, and even though I don't like places with too many people, this is one of my favorite places! !
After entering the graduate school course, I was overwhelmed by the number of assignments and thought about dropping out.
Please see the previous article for details! !
■ Please also see this! ■
However, I realized that even if I withdrew from school, I would not be able to get the full tuition back, so I have two ways to deal with this difficult situation ! !
In this article, I would like to talk about those two actions! !
Action ① Send a message to a Japanese student who is taking the same class
The first thing I did was to send a message to a Japanese student who were taking the same class online .
I did this because I thought, "I'm sure that Japanese student have had the same experience of struggling with assignments as I did, and they might give me good advice! " !
Moodle , which is used for graduate school online learning, has a function to send messages to other students taking the same course.
I used the message function to contact a Japanese student.
I'm shy, so I usually don't do that, but there was no other way. I asked her some questions about the assignments of the courses.
Then, I received a reply, saying that Moodle 's message function was hard to use, so we exchanged LINE (a message app) and started communicating on LINE.
I was a full-time student who studied four subjects. However, unlike me, she was a part-time student and take one subject while working, so our learning styles were different.
However, she gave me information on papers that I could use for assignments, shared what we didn't understand in class, and taught me the progress of the assignments.
I talked a little about it in the previous article, but the most difficult thing for me was, "I wasn't sure if I can write good writing assignments and if what I was doing was right, and I had to study alone while facing an unknown future.
This may have been a problem peculiar to online study abroad, because when you actually study abroad, you can make friends.
The biggest emotional support for me was having friends who made me realize that what I was doing was the right, and who would study with me.
Sometimes when I didn't have motivation and was slacking off, she encouraged me to study harder!!
If I hadn't sent her a message and hadn't got any advice, I might have failed a few subjects or dropped out.
Action ② Moving
The second action I took was to move .
I've been living at my parents' house since I was born, so I just moved to my partner's house in Gifu prefecture .
I have a partner that I have been with for about 6 years and I decided to move and study there! !
The reason is 1) My family is large, so I wanted to concentrate on my studies in a quiet environmnent 2) My partner was majoring in English Literature, so I thought I could talk about my assignments! !
My partner has already found a job and is working full time, so I was able to study while doing household chores, including laundry, cleaning, cooking, and shopping.
I quite like those household chores other than laundry, so it cleaned my head! (I hate doing laundry because it's nothing new and doesn't give me a sense of accomplishment lol)
My partner gave me advice on my assignments and sometimes studied with me, which was really helpful!
Another good thing about moving is that I gained the “zest for living”!
It sounds like Japanese course of study, but as I wrote earlier, I've only ever lived at my parent's house, so living alone (living together?) helped me know how to live alone!
These housework skills I got helped me a lot when I was studying in Australia and living in a dormitory !
At the new place, I had a hard but enjoyable life at the same time. (At that time, I didn't know that my friends would later made fun of me and asked me, "How was your Gifu study abroad experience?")
After I finished the first semester, I returned to my parents' house during the summer vacation.
I have a room fragrance in my room, and the moment I entered the room and smelled it, it brought back vivid and painful memories of studying at home!
It seems that memory is connected to the five senses, but it was an interesting experience!
I'm still glad I did the two things I did (I don't think there are many people who study online, so I don't think they sympathize much...lol)
If you were to ask me if I would like to go back to studying abroad, which was a painful experience, I would probably answer that I would not.
However, the friends and experiences I met while studying abroad are really important parts of me.
I would like to write another article about the hardships of studying abroad and living in Australia.
Next time, I would like to write "What I learned in the first semester"
May your study abroad be a wonderful one! ! !
