TEAN: Study Abroad in Gold Coast, Australia

Before I actually decided to study abroad in Australia, I was doing research on the different companies and kept stumbling upon The Education Abroad Network. One day I simply decided to just start applying on their website and see where it went from there. Only a few short days after starting the application, I received a phone call from someone at TEAN to discuss my options and any questions I had. And from that moment on, I decided I was definitely studying abroad through them. Looking back, there is no other company I would have rather gone abroad to Australia with. The Education Abroad Network did everything they possibly could to make sure things ran smoothly, and were there every step of the way.

I knew going to Australia was out of my comfort zone, but TEAN did everything to make me feel comfortable. Our initial orientation week in Sydney was the perfect opener to the country. We were given tours of the city, went to all the touristy areas, and even went to go see our first kangaroos. And our final night together before we continued to the Gold Coast was complete by a sunset dinner cruise in the harbor, acting as the perfect finishing touch to a great week. From there I felt ready to explore the rest of Australia, especially knowing people from TEAN were there in case I had any questions or just wanted to chat. Once I got to the Gold Coast and Bond University, I felt at home. It was the perfect location for me. Only 20 minutes from the beach, what could be better. It was the absolute best experience of my life, life-changing, and if I could do it all over again I would do it the exact same way. If you are considering study abroad, do it, no questions asked.

The best decision I ever made was to study abroad in Australia (Gold Coast) with The Education Abroad Network. First of all, Australia is amazing because of the great weather, beaches, and adventure activities. You will never be bored and TEAN sets up great activities for students to further ensure that. TEAN arranged an awesome week-long orientation in Sydney before classes started where we got to go on a tour of the city, climb the Sydney Tower, visit a zoo, and we even got to go jet boating! Throughout the semester TEAN arranged for us to attend a Rugby game and a trip to a wildlife sanctuary where we could hold koalas. The TEAN staff is very good about making themselves available to students if one were to have any questions or concerns about housing, school, or things to do when abroad. The abroad office at Bond Uni was also a great resource to students. The campus is beautiful and TEAN offers great housing options for those that want to live on or off campus.

Aussie was the best trip ever! I am 100% sure everyone who went on this trip has come back home saying this. When do you every get to see Kangaroos around like deer are back home? When do you get to hold a koala bear? Once you get to Aussie the traveling is so cheap! The culture lifestyle is the best ever. You never feel rushed, I swear you just really get the time to enjoy nature and what it all has to offer.

My favorite experience that I had abroad was for sure traveling the Whitsundays. I was able to spend a whole weekend on the boat with people from all over. I also got to snorkel and dive all around the Great Barrier Reef which is life changing in itself. The water is so blue! The pictures that I took did not even do it justice as everyone deserves to see it with their own eyes. I am not kidding when I say you look above the water and it looks like it should be in a movie then when you look in the water it is like Finding Nemo right under you. It gives me goose bumps evening thinking about the trip. If I could go back and relive one trip it would for sure be that!

Aussie not only was a great education experience but something much more. I am able to bring those ways back to America and still keep the Aussie vibes around me. I know someone day very soon I would love to go back.

Cheers!

Australia is hands down the best place I've ever been. I'll never forget waking up to sunshine everyday and always being happy. One of my favorite places to sit and think was my balcony. I got to look out over the lake and just sit and take in everything I was experiencing. There was never a dull moment. One weekend I went to Moreton Island, which was amazing. I kayaked in the ocean at night where I was able to see sea turtles swimming underneath me because the kayaks were transparent. There was also a dolphin like seven feet away from us! I went sand tobogganing, where I got a face full of sand, but hey it was well worth it. The sand in the face or the giant hill I had to walk up didn't stop me from going down the mountain one more time.
Going abroad was easily the best decision I've ever made and especially the program I went with. They were always there if we needed them and genuinely cared about making our experience the greatest possible. I can't wait until I can go back and explore the country for more than a semester.
I encourage everyone to go down under for a semester, you'll never be the same!!

I loved my study abroad experience and took part in the optional pre-orientation trip to Fiji and would highly recommend it to everyone! It was such an amazing experience and a great opportunity to meet everyone in the group before school started. We stayed a Botara resort, the only one on the island, and we were all sans phones, computers, and watches for a week. All these factors and the crossing the international timeline meant that by the end of the week not a single person knew what day of the week it was! It was a surreal feeling to have no clue what day it was. The Gold Coast was a great central location from which to discover and explore the Eastern Coast of Australia.

Overall my experience with TEAN was nothing short of amazing. I lived on the beach in a hotel with people who I now call my best friends. We took full advantage of our time in the Gold Coast and planned activities to do every day or participated in events provided for us by TEAN. My favorite excursion planned by TEAN was our orientation in Sydney. We had things to do planned for us every day to explore the city and we were given knowledge on how to adapt to Australian culture. This orientation gave us the opportunity to make close friends with people studying all around Australia, and numerous close friendships were established during this week.

Where to even begin? This was hands down the best 4 months of my life, best experience of my life. Basically just the best time of my life was from August 28th to December 20th of 2015. Everyday was something new, whether it was traveling somewhere, meeting someone, or even just trying a new food. Every day was a new experience and I loved that. I traveled all around this beautiful country and got to see some of the natural beauty this world has to offer. One of my favorite places was definitely Cairns. Cairns is really just a small town with a really beach vibe to it, so whats not to love. The thing that attracts people to Cairns though is that it is right on the great barrier reef. I got to go scuba diving on the great barrier reef which I think was my favorite thing I did while abroad. I had never been scuba diving before this, and going scuba diving on the great barrier reef for your first time is pretty unreal if you ask me. I cannot explain the feeling of exploring virtually a new world, it was absolutely incredible. The next day, I went skydiving, I jumped out of an airplane from 14 thousand feet in Australia!! I did all of this in one weekend by the way, these things I did over that weekend are things that some people go their whole lives without doing, and that was pretty much an average weekend for me there. So don't miss out, if you have the opportunity to study abroad, take advantage of that opportunity %100.

Some of my favorite memories from my time abroad were the morning sunrises that we had in every city that we went to. As we traveled across Australia, through New Zealand, and Fiji, we made sure that we watched a sunrise in every place. We forced ourselves to stay up all night long to see the sunrise but they were all filled with great times, company, and plenty of laughs along the way. They were great adventures that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Another memory I have is skydiving for the first time with a group from the program. We were all incredibly nervous before take-off but I remember once we saw the views of Cairns we forgot that we were about to jump. Naturally we all freaked out after the first person jumped however but once we all landed on the ground it was such a rush that we will never forget, and it was something we were glad to experience together.