CIEE College Study Abroad in Sydney, Australia

I liked studying abroad in Sydney. It's a beautiful area with east access to public transport. The program provides weekly excursions that are fun for instance trips to the Blue Mountains and Kiama blowhole. You get the chance to meet a lot of new people in the program and the academics are straightforward. You have classes Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, so there's a lot of free time to explore Sydney. The only downside is having to share a room and the small closet space. Overall, it's a fun program.

The program itself was fun and had a lot of good events. Christina was very helpful and is great at her job. The teachers were smart and did a good job at teaching. The housing situation was terrible. The bathrooms leaked and the kitchen as well as the living room were tiny. The rooms were small and some did not even have windows. There were moldy rooms and cockroaches in the living spaces. The only good thing about the housing was the location. I would not recommend this housing situation to anybody else.

I’m an out of state student at my home university, so I ended up saving tuition money and earning more credits by taking this program and was able to visit three countries in the process. The course load is just about right and the instructors were caring and made sure to balance our academics with our actual time abroad. Thais, Christina, Chris & Hongbo were really welcoming and made the center a nice community. CIEE is pretty close to the city center so there’s a lot of stuff to do just outside of it.

I had the privilege of attending CIEE's Sydney block at its premiere. It was a new location for the well-established program- with new staff, new teachers, new *everything*. But even still I can not speak highly enough about my experience. The classes are informative- and the assignments inspire true research and learning which gives one a more global perspective (I took the course on Development, Poverty, and Human Rights with Keshab). But aside from that the staff consistently facilitates extracurricular activities which help one take full advantage of a trip to Sydney, Australia! Various local excursions have included the Fish Market, the Art Museum, and the Zoo, among countless others! I highly recommend spending at least six weeks abroad in Sydney with CIEE. Not only will you earn academic credits, but you will gain an experience unique to anything else available by any other study abroad program! Personally, I'd always wanted to study in Sydney (following my Dad's footsteps) but there were so many other places I wanted to study in as well! CIEE proved to be the perfect program for me, as it allowed me to experience multiple places during one semester. If you're from the US (like me!) I cannot recommend this program enough! And if you have any questions please email me at abauer@umass.edu! I'm happy to answer any questions!

I would highly recommend this program to anyone even if you're not a biology major. I am a health and wellness major and I still got a lot out of it and while it was challenging it wasn't over my head. I loved how small this program was because it meant I got to know everyone really well and got really individualized attention from the professors. It is in a great location- the apartments are close to Murdoch university and it is very easy to get to Fremantle or into Perth and there is so much to do! My favorite part was going up to Exmouth because we were staying in pretty cool accommodation and the marine life at Ningaloo reef is amazing. We got to swim with so many different sea creatures from turtles to Whale Sharks. The academics can get a bit intense especially during the last week of the program but it was manageable. The only thing I didn't love was that the second course was a bit repetitive of things we had already learned. Overall, I think this is an absolutely amazing program and it was one of the best experiences of my life and I did not want to leave.

Being in Australia and getting hands on experience with its wonders and especially the wildlife (terrestrial and marine alike) has been everything I had hoped for and more! The opportunities here are immense. Now I can say that I am 1 in 3 million people who have ever had the chance to swim next to a whale shark. I got to feed and play with kangaroos, pet a baby koala, watch a giant manta ray doing barrel rolls right before my eyes, take selfies with Quokas, experience the vivid night life that is similar yet very different than in the US. Experiencing a different culture by diving right into it has been amazing in every way! I have formed relationships with beautiful people and have come out with far more knowledge and awareness of the importance of our marine ecosystems. I would absolutely recommend to everyone to go to Australia and especially to Ningaloo marine park. I have never seen such beautiful and pristine beaches before and the coral ecosystems are phenomenal. There is an entire world under the sea that most people sadly are unable to visit or see. Going to Ningaloo has reawakened my passion for conservation biology and I want to do everything I can to help preserve the precious coral reef and marine ecosystems we have left. Everything about this trip has been spectacular in every way. I only wish I would have known how nice Australians (especially women) dress. So my advice to future CIEE students is if you are planning to go out into town at all or to go out at nice, bring your best clothes because they dress VERY nice here.

This program was the perfect program for me! I have always wanted to go to Australia, but I struggled for a while to figure out which city to go to. I decided on Perth, because I didn't want the feel of a huge city like some of the cities on the east coast. This was perfect, because the city of Perth offered lots of things to do / see, including bars, restaurants, clubs, city events, etc., yet it was also much quieter and laid-back. I could not get over how clean the city was -- it was just beautiful. I loved how close Murdoch University was to Fremantle, which was my favorite suburb to explore. There were endless restaurants and stores to explore, and we saw the best sunsets there every night. On Murdoch's campus, I loved that we lived in the Village, so we were fully immersed in the student life there. We became friends with full-time students, so I became best friends with students from Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, etc. I absolutely loved all of my fellow American friends through CIEE, but we all really loved / appreciated the fact that we were not just limited to meeting Americans. I loved how laid-back Murdoch University was as compared with universities in the US. My professors were willing to meet with me for extra help, and I loved the unique classes I could take here in order to learn about Australia itself. Finally, I loved the opportunities we had to be outside, explore nature, and interact with animals. On any of the trips we took to the north- or south-west of Australia, we would see kangaroos, wallabies, emus, echidnas, and more just on the side of the roads. This would've been a totally different experience if I had been in a huge city, so I am so thankful for Perth / Murdoch and all they had to offer!!!!

The Summer Marine Tropical Ecology course that CIEE offers is amazing. The excursions are extremely fun and very informative. They go very well with the lectures and course information. The grading is much different in Australia, so Americans will have to prepare for that and really work with their instructors to understand exactly what they want. However, overall it was a fantastic experience and I have grown significantly as a student, traveler, and person.