WORLDREP Program, Australia

Af Kasper Kaasgaard (journalist)

To Brisbane and beyond

Getting to spend a full year in Brisbane is so far the greatest experience of my life. Where a one-semester exchange will only allow you to get familiar with a city and its people, the Worldrep program gives you a much fuller experience. Furthermore it allows you to explore the magnificent country and its neighbours.

Any direction you drive will present an opportunity to take post card-like photos. Make sure to do it.

Rainforests, coral reefs with all the world’s colours, beautiful islands and funny animals are just a drive away. Make sure to buy a car!

It’s not just snakes and koalas. This little fellow is called an echidna and is one of many creatures that I had never heard of.

You will have to study from time to time as well. I chose to do so at the Nathan campus, located a bit south of central Brisbane. My courses were a mix between hands-on journalism and hard-core academia with sociology students doing their Honours. These were very bright, young people and class was packed with interesting discussions. I can’t point straight to how this made me a better journalist but it definitely made me a better and more interesting person.

On the first day of school a real Australian introduced all the internationals to the local wildlife; some cute and cuddly, some lethal. The Nathan campus is located in the middle of the forest so you might get to spot a koala walking to class.

The journalism classes were not the most challenging but it was very interesting to learn about Australian media and how the population feels about it (hint: not impressed). At times me at my fellow Danish student felt a bit like circus animals being observed and made explain how the media landscape looks like in our part of the world. I personally enjoyed this.

As it should be with university, what you give is what you get. Depending on your engagement and enthusiasm it can be an easy or a very giving experience. We spend the main part of our second semester writing our Honours thesis. This is a big project, either a purely academical thesis or a journalism project with an exegesis.

Brisbane has two universities apart from Griffith called UQ and QUT. Especially at UQ they have a very active student community and are good at taking care of their internationals. I ended up concentrating a lot of my social time here and with Australians instead of at Griffith. This might have been a coincidence but it goes to show that there’s plenty of places to have fun and make friends.

Griffith has well-equipped audio-visual facilities. Make friends with the right people and they’ll let you use it whenever you want. We used the radio studio to record a podcast for fun and had a great time doing it.

We were lucky to get the chance to go visit our fellow Worldrep-students in Tasmania. It was a fantastic trip and a beautiful experience. And so, I’ll end by repeating my first recommendation: get a car!

 

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