Student experience - Emma Williams
Emma describes the university life in England as quite different to Adelaide. 鈥淭he thing that probably took the longest to get used to was the grading system. It鈥檚 not harsher, just different. So like, a 70 is the equivalent of a High Distinction here, and so when lecturers would say that they would be happy with a 68 鈥 well, in my mind that鈥檚 a Credit. So yeah, that took a bit of getting used to. And the fact that they don鈥檛 record lectures, so you have to go to all of your classes. They鈥檙e really big on attendance so you have to sign in and out and stuff like that.鈥
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In terms of difficult situations, Emma's听bank account was hacked while she was travelling in Norway.听鈥淭he bank couldn鈥檛 work out what the issue was,鈥 she says, 鈥淭hey weren鈥檛 sure what happened, but they think that someone made a duplicate of my card, and were withdrawing money. But to be honest, it wasn鈥檛 too bad. I contacted my parents. They used a service where you can transfer money and access it within five minutes. They just transferred me what I needed. After all that, we came to the decision to move my flight home forward, because we were a bit worried about what I was going to do without money if it happened again.鈥
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鈥淚 think that it could definitely happen to anyone. You need to be very cautious. I mean, we鈥檙e young people, sometimes we think we鈥檙e safe from all that stuff, but it can happen to anyone. I didn鈥檛 do anything out of the ordinary for it to happen. It鈥檚 just unfortunate that it did. The best thing you can do is just to stay calm and be aware of those kinds of things. Have a backup plan for emergencies. Everyone thinks that it won鈥檛 happen to them but it can and it does.鈥
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Emma's favourite memory from her entire trip was听seeing the northern lights. "I鈥檝e wanted to go to Norway for ages. But I'd听never been so cold in my life. I thought my feet were going to fall off. It was just incredible."
"I think you have the freedom to be who you really are overseas. So there鈥檚 no barriers. Being somewhere where nobody knows who you are, all that pressure is lifted. I feel more comfortable and confident, and more prepared to deal with things on my own."
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