What it's like being an International Student?

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"I just want to make my mom proud", the words I said before taking off. It's that moment when you just sit in the airplane alone with tears in your eyes neither with your mom holding your hand or your dad telling you to fasten your seat belt just to make sure you're safe; that hits you the most. Scared, lonely, sleepless and who knows how many more feelings I got when I left home. I was happy and sad at the same time when I left home to the airport; was the happiest just to make my family and friends feel that I was not when actually everyone was sobbing. That moment was mesmerizing as to I felt loved, cared and home. Leaving all of them was hard but leaving my mom, my godmother, my best friend and the one was the hardest. It feels like yesterday I was home happily talking to my mom over breakfast and going over to my best friends house just to gossip about everything. 

Welcome to Sydney!- horrified, shivering, panicking just to begin my new journey. I can do it! I will do it!, I was excited but more scared, I was free but wanted to be grounded forever, I wanted to fly but I wanted to swim across to meet everyone in Nepal. Who knows what you are going through, started writing right after I landed and here I am still scared to share my thoughts. Been months now, I am here with more experience of being an international student. I did not even have the guts to finish this, just thinking about this makes me sad. Here in Australia, it was not easy for me to go out and come home to see none of my family members.  None of these things matters as you go by. 

Whoever is reading this, do you have any newborn in your family, friends? Have you ever seen them progress day by day and finally walk, talk? That's how it is like to be an international student, in a harder way. You fail every day doing the same thing you ignored to once do i.e. cook, laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning, job and everything that an adult does, according to me. I know I had to do it at some point in my life but all these at once, I was not prepared. This is not the hardest thing when time goes on. It was hard in the beginning but now these are the only easy thing. Talking to everyone on the device you once got scolded for using it too much is the only mean you get to see them every day. Yes, yes I ain't only the one international student here in Australia but believe me when I say, the struggle is real. The patience, the devotion, the dedication, the passion, the struggle that every international student has to survive on their own is something everyone should applaud them for. As to my perspective, none of the Australian students or any other country's student can face such pressure to study, work, earn as the Nepali students. They have pressure to earn and live on their own, pay fees, pay bills, and much more.  

I do not blame whatever I learned in school, high school but couldn't they just have taught us how to do the damn assignments! Just so that you know, I struggled, I struggled really hard while doing assignments at first, "Reference, citations, quote" - what the... I was blank. Maybe it was just us that we had no idea about it or maybe it was just the school that didn't care about teaching us. "Plagiarism", do you know what's this; it's just something, I and my fellow friends always did not care with our Projects back then and now it's a crime here! Do I blame myself or the education that I got? And what are the odds, I was always taught with books and notebooks, not laptops, projectors, and computers? 

Sharing something with my sister, duh!? It was not a thing. Until now, I have to share everything with a bunch of random people and compromise over everything. Walking on over each other while we are changing, in the toilet. Always have somebody to talk to and watch movies all night. The best part is you never have to sleep empty stomach. You always have food for you, waiting. The only good thing that's going on, living with a bunch of random people with different cultures and foods and everything. You know each other very well.

In spite of everything I am facing, every other student is facing. We got to move on and live life to the fullest. I know it's sad but what can you eventually do? It's me that choose this way of life so I got to get it together in my own way. 

Hope you loved reading it. G'day.

Cheers!! 

Position: Intern ENGAGE

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