Angella is always up for an adventure and to broaden her knowledge of public health systems in the US and other countries. That is what led her to embark on her study-abroad/internship journey with CAPA in Sydney, Australia!
CAPA was one of the only programs offered at my school that included an international internship along with a study abroad experience, so it was easy to narrow my choices down given my options!
CAPA also had incredible excursions outlined for participants and a wonderful support staff that answered all of my questions, and I have always wanted to visit Australia, so for me, it was an obvious pick!
CAPA assisted me through the entire application process. Whenever I had questions, I was able to reach out to someone at their local Boston office, and my issues were always resolved in a quick manner.
Once I had been accepted into the program, they also supplied me and other students with the instructions to apply for a Student Visa in Australia, which took a lot of stress out of that process as well. Additionally, they even found our internships for us by asking what fields we were interested in, and acted as a third party to set us up in the internship!
The only thing I had to do on my own was to handle the plane ticket!
Travel!
A common misconception about studying abroad in Australia is that there are not a lot of opportunities to travel as you would have to study abroad somewhere in Europe. This is definitely not the case! I was able to travel within Australia with ease, and even got a chance to visit the Great Barrier Reef! Additionally, a lot of my friends traveled to Bali, Singapore, Fiji, and New Zealand, and saw some of the most beautiful sights
Australia is a wonderful country with lots of grandeur, and despite the price, you may see to travel to where you want to go, do it anyway! You will not have the same opportunity again!
Our classes were held once a week for three hours. My schedule was really nice since I went to my internship for eight hours a day, Mondays and Tuesdays, and then took my other three classes on Wednesdays and Thursdays. This left me with a three day weekend to go to beaches, shops, and travel!
It was rare for someone in the program to have class or the internship all five days of the work-week.
I was terrified of not making friends and being left all alone for three and a half months. The best way to combat this is to throw yourself into activities with people as often as you can. By doing so, I made four great friends that I still talk regularly with even though our program ended months ago. This program made that very easy because we were all housed in the same hotel, and therefore, were only a few rooms away from each other.
You should say "yes" to any opportunity that interests you, whether you're feeling a little tired or unsure of it (as long as its something you want to do!). I traveled to as many places as I could afford, and spent every weekend with those four girls and had the time of my life!
Learn to cook! I can not stress this enough. Right off the bat I began cooking myself meals and limited my trips to Starbucks for frappuccinos. By doing this, I was spending way less money on eating out and could put it towards souvenirs, gifts for my family, and of course traveling.
By the end of the program, I did start to splurge a bit (because I totally deserved it) and I still came home with more money than I anticipated having leftover.