Looking back to her first day at UTS College, Aurelia says, “I wish someone had told me not to be scared.” She had just arrived in Australia, having completed Year 10 in Indonesia, to start UTS Foundation Studies. “I was afraid I wouldn’t find any friends.” She remembers the moment she took things into her own hands. “We were at Orientation. The hall was big and there were lots of students. Then I thought, ‘You know what? Let me just go and say hi.’ And I made my very first friend.”
Aurelia made her next friend in her very first class. “It was English,” she says, “and I sat next to this girl, and we introduced each other. Then in Week Two, I asked another girl, ‘Can I sit here because I want to charge my laptop’, and we introduced each other at the table. And now we’re all still friends. We go out every weekend. Making friends is my best memory from UTS College.”
That circle of friends reflects the diverse student population at UTS College. Aurelia says, “My College friends are from all over the world. We like exchanging. Sometimes we teach each other about our language or culture. And sometimes we just go somewhere together. For example, I brought them to an Indonesian restaurant, and they loved it.”
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It was easy to make friends in the welcoming environment at UTS College.
Making a smooth transition
Now in first year of Bachelor of Information Technology at UTS, Aurelia chose UTS Foundation Studies as an alternative to completing high school in Jakarta. “I knew I wanted to study at UTS, and I’ve had my eyes on this degree since learning about IT in high school,” she says.
When Aurelia was looking at places to study, her sister – a UTS alumna now working in design – encouraged her to consider UTS. “She told me UTS is a good choice if you want something that’s more practical, and that was me,” she says. “I love how practical my course is and how I can solve real-world problems.”
Aurelia loves the hands-on, practical approach to IT at UTS
Starting with UTS Foundation Studies helped Aurelia transition from high school to university. She says, “For me, it was a way to ‘test’ the university environment. There’s lots of support, like having Peer Mentors. My Mentor was so nice. It was easy to talk to her. We’d have a meeting every single week and I could talk about things I was experiencing. She gave me advice and talked about lots of things that helped me settle in as an international student.”
There were many other helpful resources. “I always recommend Studiosity for essays because it really helped me get a good essay grade. I was so scared about writing essays in English before I came here, but we learnt so much in our English course. Now I’m at UTS I have lots of subjects that need me to write an essay or report, and I can look back at all the documents from Foundation. It helps so much. Sometimes I even do a split screen of my previous essay and Foundation notes.”
A surprise win
Aurelia certainly made good use of the help available at the College. Not only did she win a Dean’s Merit Award during her first semester – she also graduated from UTS Foundation Studies with an Outstanding Graduate Award. She says, “I really wasn’t expecting to win it. As soon as I saw the email I called my Mum. I was like, ‘Mum, Mum! I got this award!’ I told all my family about it, and they were really supportive. I was so happy.”
The support of her family has always meant a lot to Aurelia. She says, “They’re all really inspiring. I look up to them a lot – my Mum and my sister and my brother. Any time I have something I don’t understand, I can just ask them. And any time I felt down, they’ll say, ‘Don’t worry. You can do it. Just take breaks. Sometimes it’s okay to feel down, but you need to get back up. I saw my sister completing her degree with lots of sweat and tears. She’s currently in Sydney so I can talk to her every time I have concerns or questions.”
A calm, steady approach
Aurelia has come a long way since she arrived here as a nervous sixteen-year-old. “I want to say that being an international student, packing my life into just one suitcase, is not an easy thing. I was scared. There were many things on my mind. ‘What if I can’t get a good grade?’ ‘What if I can’t make friends?’ ‘What happens if I’m not comfortable here in Sydney?’ ‘What might go wrong?’ But I tried not to let those thoughts take over. I always told myself that it’s okay to take breaks sometimes. I don’t have to push myself every single time. It’s okay to wind down and just go out for walks and do things I love. For example, I love drawing, so I’ll just take some time to draw while I’m watching a movie. Just calm down, and then you can get back into it.”
She still maintains that calm, steady approach at UTS while giving herself the time to embrace campus life. “I do lots of volunteering,” she says, “and I’m an ambassador for UTS Women in Engineering. I go to lots of networking events now because I want to meet industry professionals. Especially if they’re working as a software developer or in other IT jobs. I’m also in the Lucy mentoring program. My mentor is helping me set goals to achieve my target of being a software developer.”
Aurelia says she’d like to encourage others to take the leap and become international students. “Come here. Enjoy the learning process because when you learn here, you’re not only growing in a personal way, but also as a professional. You become more independent,” she says. “Just don’t be scared to say hi to someone, starting from Orientation. Because you never know. They just might be your best friends for the rest of your life.”
Find out more about UTS Foundation Studies>