Bradley Sacks, USA

Text: Bradley Sacks, Bachelor of Business

Bradley Sacks: My name is Bradley Sacks, and I’m studying Bachelor of Business at UTS. I chose to go on exchange because I wanted to make friends internationally and I wanted to experience a different culture and a different environment and to learn what it was like to live away from home.

I visited New York, and what I liked most about it was the fact that it was very different to the environment that I’m used to living in. It wasn’t as much – people think of New York as New York City; it was a very small town. It was very artistic, so there was a lot of culture, a lot of different music, a lot of different restaurants. It was easy to settle into my university, because you live with other people in a common sort of area, so I was able to sort of go and introduce myself and people were like ‘Oh, wow, you’re from Australia? That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to meet an Australian.’ I think I made a lot of really good friends that way.

I think the specific skills I developed while I was on exchange was how to manage money – that’s a really big deal, especially when everything is so expensive. I also think I learnt how to live by myself; I never lived away from home before. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’d ever – I hadn’t really ever really travelled overseas before without my parents, or without my family, so it was my first time away from overseas and away from home.

I also learnt how to be more confident and interact with different people from different cultures, which I think is a lifelong skill that will definitely help benefit my future.

The top three things that I’d like to give for students going on exchange is to make sure that they’re extremely prepared and organised when it comes to the documents and what they’re taking with them. Don’t over pack though, especially because it’s a different climate. I think socially, trying to make sure that you’re willing to adapt to the different cultures so that you show that you can be similar to them. And um, final piece of advice I’d give is, try to say yes to anything, as long as it’s not something that’s dangerous, because there’s a lot of new opportunities and experiences and a lot of fun to be had.