RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia – Spring 2014 1. Preparing for the exchange I did my exchange semester at RMIT University in Melbourne during the spring semester in 2014. There were quite a fair amount of different forms that needed to be filled and sent to Australia before the semester started. First, I had to fill Offer Acceptance Form and Proxy Form and then I had to as an overseas student pay Overseas Student Healthcare Cover (OSHC), which cost in 2013, at the moment of purchasing it, 250 AUD. When these steps are done, and additionally one has sent a copy of the identification page of the passport to the Abroad Office at RMIT they will send you the official Acceptance Letter and electronic Confirmation of Enrolment (eCOE). As going to study in Australia one needs to apply for a student visa for the semester. It is easy and quite straightforward to handle it online. When applying the student visa one needs to have eCOE form to include in the application. The visa application should be done well in time since it may take longer than expected to get the visa granted. For me it took one week to get one, but for some people who also were going to Australia it took several weeks. The price of non-­‐
award sector student visa for one semester is approximately 500 AUD. To prove my adequate skills in English I also had to send to Australia my upper secondary school diploma translated in ENGLISH. As far as I remember these papers were to be handled in the first place. After a while I had to enrol to the courses I am planning to take at RMIT. But one should remember that these enrolments are only preliminary. This means that when the school starts you really have to drop the courses that you are not taking since in the beginning you will enrol yourself into more courses that is required just to ensure that you will be getting at least some courses of your own will. Arriving to the school and starting the studies went on without any problems. On the first day I just had to go the school to sign the paper that I had arrived and then I had to enrol to the lectures and tutorials and drop the courses I did not attend. That was the boring stuff before the exchange itself starts! As Australia is a very far-­‐away country I really recommend that those people going to Australia spend some time travelling around the neighbourhood at some point. Since the semester starts quite late regarding the European standards it is quite convenient to travel before the semester starts. For example, I spent 5 astonishingly great weeks by travelling around Asia before landing to Melbourne. 2. Exchange Studies The semester 1 in 2014 started in the beginning of March and the orientation program started two weeks earlier on the 17th of February. The courses finish somewhere in the beginning of June and the exam period is until the end of June. The exam dates will be released in the mid of semester, which is somewhat annoying when planning the travelling or going home dates after the semester. The course selection at RMIT is okay and I was able to find interesting courses for myself. I had only two concerns when picking up the courses: 1) Some courses require prerequisites, for example if the enrolling student had not done the basic course of that very topic in Australia it was impossible to get into that course there. That is somewhat stupid since those basic level courses are pretty much equivalent to the basic courses done in Aalto Business School. 2) I was interested in taking some advanced undergraduate courses in economics but after studying that topic in Finland I could not find anything appropriate at RMIT. But at the end of the day, I was able to find courses of my taste pretty easily there after all. During my semester I had the following courses: MKTG1045 Market Research (undergraduate, 12 ECTS): The evaluation of this course was conducted by final exam and continuous coursework throughout the whole semester. The course was about the process of market research and the whole course was built around a real life case for Hallmark, a major card making company. The coursework in that course was about conducting and analysing the attractiveness of Australia as a target market for Hallmark. At the end of the day the contents of the course was very useful and interesting, but teaching at that course was not so great. BUSM3125 Strategic Management (undergraduate, 12 ECTS): The evaluation of this course was conducted by two major real life case studies. Also this course was built around a major Australian company called Boral. This course was very interesting mixture of theory and practice and they were combined in suitable manner. Though this course requires a lot of work, but there is a catch – if your team is among the top 5 out of 100+ teams, you are going to present your ideas to the board of a company worth more than 5 billion dollars. I can say that is a pretty cool reward of hard work. BUSM1311 Entrepreneurial Process (undergraduate, 12 ECTS): The evaluation of this course was conducted by small quizzes, a debate, and a case study. The contents of this course were about the general prospects of entrepreneurship. The lecturers in this course were entrepreneurs themselves so they had a lot to talk about the practicalities and life of an entrepreneur. ACCT1028 Performance Analysis and Simulations (undergraduate, 12 ECTS): This course used online simulation software, in which students had to do all the decisions from R&D to financing and pricing decisions regarding a company playing in competitive markets. So, the evaluation of the course was based on how good decisions students made and how those decisions affected on the performance of the company in competitive atmosphere. This course gave a nice view how different fields of decisions are linked to each other and how do they affect on final results. This course taught well how to analyse your performance and according to the analysis how to make correcting decisions. 3. Free Time and Other Information Cost of Living As you may know Australia is quite expensive country as Finland is. Many things are though less expensive there than back at home. Clothes, food, and electronics are cheaper than in Australia than in Finland. Approximately the nominal prices are the same in both the countries but due to the differences in exchange rate the real prices are lower for Finnish people in Australia. Melbourne is at least due to the rankings in the top 10 of the most expensive cities to live and that is something you can see in rents. Instead of monthly rents they usually announce weekly rents and they tend to be quite high compared to Helsinki. If you take a campus apartment the weekly price might somewhere between $300-­‐$450. They are way too overpriced! A good solution might be looking for a shared apartment via some online page, e.g. Gumtree. Usually the rent will be a lot less expensive, something like $150-­‐$250 per week. You could also rent a whole apartment with your friends, which is a bit more expensive than a random shared apartment but most likely cheaper and way better than campus apartments. I rented an apartment in Docklands through a local agency with two friends I found in Melbourne. The rent was about $1000 per month each but it was definitely the best apartment among all the people I met in Melbourne, and good dinners with friends and house parties guaranteed with it. Other expenses than living and eating will occur from commuting, spending nights out, and travelling. The public transportation in Melbourne is not that great compared what we have used to in Helsinki and it is also quite expensive. Due to the slow speed and the price of public transportation it is quite reasonable to buy a bicycle if you live somewhere close to the city centre, since it is easily the quickest way to move around. I bought my bike as used in Gumtree, the place where you can buy almost anything. I also sold it there, so after all I was able to commute for free. Well, if something is really expensive compared to other expenses in Australia it is going out. If almost all goods are considerably cheaper than in Finland then the price of alcohol is pretty much the same as it is Finland or even greater. So, going out will be a serious black hole for money, especially if you go some of those very nice but quite fancy nightclubs in Melbourne CBD (I strongly recommend a club called CQ – easily one of the best clubs I have ever been). But don’t worry, Aussies like their house parties and barbecue events where you can bring that Australian made $2/litre cheap wine called Goon. And, Aussies and people doing their exchange in Melbourne really do like going out quite often! Getting to Know to the Other Students RMIT does not organize too attractive activities to meet new people. I recommend you to be active when making friends in the orientation week. And a good way to make new friends is to join clubs at RMIT and join their trips. Also, RMIT organizes some short trips where you can meet a lot of cool people. For example, I joined RMIT Surf Club and the surf camps organized by the club were full of amazing people and those events were the sickest and funniest of the whole semester! But when you are active in the beginning and you create a good friend base you will have a lot of time through those people you will get a lot of new connection along the way. Usually the problem in exchange is not meeting the local people, but I would say that I overcame the problem quite efficiently by joining the surf club and also playing football (soccer) in the RMIT first team. General information about Melbourne It is not a joke when it says in Wikipedia that there may be four seasons in a day. The weather might change within minutes from burning sun to chilly drizzle. But generally for those who are accustomed with the Finnish weather Melbourne offers quite nice climate. During wintertime it hardly never gets below 10 degrees. Melbourne lies next to the Southern Ocean, so you can find a beach within the distance of 4 kilometres from the city centre. The St. Kilda area, where the beaches are is a very nice location to have a dinner, a leisurely stroll, or a night out to get loose. The best beaches around the area for surfing and chilling are though outside Melbourne. Most of them are located along the Great Ocean Road, which is one of the most spectacular roads in the world curling between the ocean and rocky slopes covered with eucalyptus trees. If you are interested in surfing there are different options to do so: 1) Joining to the surf club at RMIT and attending their surf camps. 2) Renting a car and driving to some nice spot along the Great Ocean Road and renting or using your own surf board. 3) Flying to Sydney or Gold Coast and having the most amazing surf ever in the Pacific Ocean. In short I would say that learning to surf and the surfing culture were probably the best things to discover in Australia. Motorcycling in The Great Ocean Road. Melbourne truly is melting pot of cultures. You can easily find an Italian, Chinese, Greek or so part in the city and the great restaurants along the way. Myself I would strongly recommend going to Italian suburb in Lygon Street and having some great pasta there or voted-­‐to-­‐be the best Margherita pizza in the world in a restaurant called 400 Gradi. Melbourne is a fabulous spot for people liking good food and great coffee. The Melbourne people love their coffee and that is something one can easily spot on the streets; people walking by coffee cups in their hands and one another better looking cafés everywhere. When it comes to food there is an endless selection of different cuisines to discover. But special mention goes to sushi. They sell very cheaply good sized and great tasting sushi rolls everywhere – definitely something that goes well for a student. There are an endless number of clubs and bars in Melbourne, varying from nice and laid-­‐back rooftop bars to very fancy nightclubs. The best areas for getting loose or at least having couple of nice Australian ales are CBD, Carlton, Fitzroy, Chapel St, and Brunswick. It is relatively easy to find a new interesting spot for every single night of your stay. From rooftop bars I would definitely recommend a place called Naked for Satan in Fitzroy, which is famous for its tapas days. For people who like partying hard I would say to go to Revolver nightclub in Chapel St since in that club the party goes on until 7 am during weekends. The people in Melbourne are extraordinarily sociable and warm. They really like to have good time and spend their time being relaxed. They do not tend to stress too much about anything except those grades at school. All in all, it is easy to fall into a meaningful conversation with an Aussie and even make friends by chance and you may get an invitation to her barbecue party thrown next weekend with her family. Travelling in the Host Country Australia and its surroundings are an endless source of spectacular places to visit and limitless number of activities. RMIT organizes quite a many trips on its own. I found those trips very good especially in the beginning when I did not know that many people yet. So, they are, for example a two-­‐day trip to see Twelve Apostles in Great Ocean Road, a very good chance to see some of the greatest locations in Australia and as well making new friends. After a while when you have met already a lot of people it is convenient to organize trips on your own with your friends. For example, I did a 10-­‐day trip to Gold Coast and Byron Bay to surf and also a 3-­‐week road trip from Sydney to Cairns with some awesome people. The expenses of travelling are reasonable. Domestic flights are quite cheap if you are on time booking them (with return ticket something like $30-­‐
$230). Accommodation, like hostels are usually priced around $30 per night. At some point I really recommend of doing a road trip in Australia! It is impossible to describe the feeling when parking a car on an empty beach at night and seeing the Milky Way clearly in the sky and then waking up early in the morning and seeing the best possible waves for surfing just 30 metres from your campervan. A view at Whitsundays located on the East Coast of Australia. 4. Final Comments I would strongly recommend Melbourne as a location to spend an exchange semester. It is a big city full of life and lots to do and see. But I would not give such a strong recommendation for the RMIT University. It is originally a university focused on technology so the quality of education and studies in business are not that convincing. I found the studies at RMIT interesting but very easy and sometimes the coursework was not that relevant regarding the subject in hand and sometimes the amount of coursework was overwhelming. I am not saying that RMIT is a bad university, but if you are willing to find some challenge for your studies while in exchange RMIT might no be your spot. But for people like me who were merely looking for the cultural aspect of exchange and numerous great experiences while being abroad RMIT is a decent choice (and Melbourne is an excellent choice!). Most of all, an exchange semester is about learning new things and broaden your horizon. There are some almost guaranteed things that one learns during the exchange; such as language skills, setting up a life in a new place abroad, coping with people from different backgrounds, putting one’s capabilities into a global context, and so on. But I think that the most important lessons come form what you are able to learn about yourself during your stay outside your regular life and weekly schedule. And, why not to do it in Melbourne? Twelve Apostles. If you have questions regarding Australia, Melbourne, RMIT, or exchange itself, please do not hesitate to contact me. Best regards, Mikko Savolainen mikko.j.savolainen@aalto.fi 044 5100291