Raina (Sem 1, 2023)

My Exchange at The University of California – San Diego

Going to a completely different country to study and live for a long period of time was the first time in my life. There are some things I wish I had known before my exchange.

Firstly, there were more challenges than I thought when travelling long distances alone. I experienced some true surprises and shocks on my very first day of exchange. When I booked my flight tickets, I booked them on a third-party website, and since I am travelling to the US and there wasn’t a direct flight so airline companies usually collaborate with each other. In my case, two airlines collaborated, but when one airline made changes to their flights, my third-party agency did not provide changes but cancelled my flight directly. This caused conflicts and confusion across three different parties, none of them could help me resolve these conflicts so I was stuck at the airport because they could not help me check-in. Thus, I experienced up to three or four changes in my flights within two days, one change even happened when I arrived in the US. I felt very helpless when those unexpected changes happened, so my one piece of advice is to book your flight on the official website, in order to avoid all these unnecessary events.

Secondly, living alone was a big challenge for me. Managing my own sleeping and eating habits is quite difficult when you have courses, events, activities and other things to do at the same time. I lived in a single room, so without any interference, I could easily stay up late till very late without noticing. Also, having a healthy eating schedule is important, but when you are busy and by yourself it’s difficult to achieve the best goals. So be sure to prepare for these and keep good habits to maintain your health from the first day.

Lastly, after I arrived at the university, I found the housing and living costs were higher than I expected. I also spent much more than I expected on groceries and snacks. It is important to keep track of your spending and prepare a large enough budget prior to the exchange to avoid any unnecessary panics.

Q&A

What were some of the highlights of the academic experience at your host university?

Studying at UCSD, I was able to access world-class resources and meet all kinds of talented people. Teamwork and problem-solving are also the main skills taught in classes here. In my Supervised Machine Learning class, I collaborated with three other students and completed a project to examine the transferability of Sentiment Analysis (NLP) models across multiple social media platforms. Moreover, in my Financial Statement Analysis class, we analysed Amazon’s business and financial conditions in the first few weeks and performed an independent analysis of Tesla’s financial performance as a group at the end. These are just some examples of the projects and work I did in class throughout these two quarters, I truly enjoyed most of the courses here as they taught me more than just knowledge.

Would you recommend any particular activity/activities unique to your host country or university?

Student societies made up a large part of my exchange experience. Even before I arrived in San Diego, I was selected as the Design Chair for the CSES (Computer Science and Engineering Society) board. I led the design team for CSES rebranding, we designed a new website, and new merchandise and helped the club to revamp the social media designs. Besides that, I also joined Triton Television (TTV) as a filmmaking intern and completed two phases of the internship. I created a film with a “non-human” actor – AI for my first project, and as a group of five, we created a film called “Short Men Therapy” for my second phase. Design Co is a club for designers, I joined the Visual Design Apprenticeship program and improved my skills in brand, logo, UI, social media and merch designs. Lastly, one of my favourite clubs on campus is the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory (RPL), it’s a large club full of rocket and space lovers! I joined as a software developer on the avionics team and was working on a project to help record and remotely control rocket launches. I made lots of good friends and memories in RPL, the stargazing event with the software team at Laguna Mountains was definitely a highlight. I would definitely recommend attending as many events as possible, you will meet amazing people and learn useful skills from them. Also, joining student societies helped me to blend into the new community faster.

What are your top 3 tips for future students attending your host university or going on exchange to your host country?

1. Enrol in classes fast! Local students here often enrol in classes earlier than us, which means most good classes may be full when we start to enrol. They also have quite a different enrollment system to UoA. You have to request approval (kind of like our concessions) for each course, so make sure you do that as early as you can. Also, they will have two enrollment periods, you can enrol different credits during these periods. Ensure you enrol the most important courses first, because if the course is full, there will be a waiting list but not everyone on the waiting list can get into the class. Enrolling in the correct classes is important to transfer credits back, and you might also want to explore some interesting courses so act early and quickly!

2. Join student clubs! The best thing I did during my time here was join as many clubs and events as possible. I really benefited from making friends with the students in my clubs and everyone was so friendly and helpful! Most of them don’t know about the exchange program, so your existence is very special and unique to them! There is a website dedicated to student clubs, I found my first club there and then instagram is a good place for resources too.

3. There are some culture shocks. I am still getting used to their unit system, I still do not know how long is 10 yards. Also, the tipping culture is very different from NZ, and the price you see on the labels is never the same as the price you actually pay. When we travel to NYC and Boston, we often pay a lot more than we thought we paid. Also, getting a credit card or debit card that you can use overseas is important, I also got a local debit card when I came here. Managing these small but important things is quite difficult at the start.

How much did you budget for your exchange? Was this enough? Were there any lessons learned that would help future students budget for their own exchange?

I initially budgeted 20k for my exchange, but it wasn’t enough at all. Especially if travelling is something you want to do, then you may need to prepare a lot more than 20k. The housing fee for me was around 1.6k, and the groceries and other things you may want to buy may also need some budget. The biggest lesson I learned was to keep track of your budgets and spending and plan to ensure you have enough money at the end of your exchange.

What are your most significant takeaways from your experience abroad?

The past half year was an extremely valuable lesson. It is my first time living and studying in a different country away from everything I’m familiar with. This experience taught me the challenges of independence but also brought me the joy of exploring unknowns. I was able to adapt to the new environment relatively fast and made some lifelong friends. I believe an experience like this shaped me to become a stronger adult and made me appreciate my parents and friends more. This experience opened up a new world for me and I could see what life on the other side of the world was like, and it wasn’t as different as I thought it would be! The world just seems more reachable and I was able to do some awesome things that I could only dream about a year ago. It is definitely worth the time and money and I believe everyone should experience studying abroad at least once in their university life.

Do you want to share anything about travels you did outside your host city/country?

San Diego is a beautiful city, I enjoyed traveling to different places in the weekends. La Jolla Cove is one of my favourite places, you can see many seals and sea lions lying on the rocks and the view of the ocean is just breathtaking. The Balboa park is also amazing, the unique architecture and all kinds of activities on the street (magic shows, silence shows, people playing different instruments and more) made me unable to stop taking photos. The sunset we watched at the Scripps Pier was one of the most impressive moments in my life, watching the sun going down the sea horizon made me appreciate nature.

Being in the US also means there are a lot of great places to visit. I spent my spring break with three of my friends and we travelled across the country to New York City and Boston. That trip was still vivid and I could not forget any moment. NYC was the most unique city I have ever been to in my life so far, it’s not like any other city in the world. I was able to see many classical scenes in movies and visit some famous places. Walking on the street just feels like walking inside movies and dramas sometimes. Also, Boston is one of my favourite places, the city is very pretty and clean. We visited Harvard and MIT, and even watched Harvard Ballet Club’s performances. These travel experiences made my exchange much more fruitful and fulfilled. I would recommend going around the country and using the opportunity to the best extent.