After choosing Australia as the place of exchange, the choice of university was smooth and straightforward. On the one hand, the administration of the UTS works extremely quickly and, on the other hand, the MicroEDU agency (www. MicroEDU. com) has made the registration process much easier for me. A detailed manual is available on the UTS website for selecting courses. This allows you to compare the courses, select them and finally forward the course descriptions to the HSG crediting office.
Once you have registered at the university, you can get your visa online in no time. When packing, please note that some domestic airlines in Australia (Jetstar and Tiger) only accept luggage up to 20 kg. If you want to take more luggage with you on domestic flights, this is possible with Qantas or Virgin. When choosing clothes, it is important to take into account that the winters in Sydney can be relatively cool and the buildings are poorly insulated and often only have a small electric heater.
Accommodation
When choosing accommodation, it should be noted that rents in Sydney are really very high. Standing for University of Technology Sydney according to abbreviationfinder, UTS offers a housing service that I’ve heard more good than bad. However, I lived with a friend through Airbnb in the apartment of a young couple in the beautiful district of Waterloo. There we had a room with a private bathroom available for a total of around CHF 1,500 per month. We could use the kitchen and the living room area. Fortunately, the apartment was equipped with powerful Wi-Fi, which is by no means a matter of course in Australia and should be a criterion when choosing the accommodation.
LIFE IN SYDNEY
In Sydney, public transport consists of a close-knit bus network and a few train lines. This can be used with a prepaid card (Opal). The prices are comparable to those in Switzerland. Google Maps offers a very useful route planner with a timetable.
In the shops of Coles, Woolworths and Aldi there is a wide range of groceries and other everyday needs. Here, too, the prices are similar to those in Switzerland. When choosing the location of the accommodation, these two points, traffic situation and shopping facilities, must be taken into account.
It is advisable to open both a mobile phone subscription and a bank account. Vodafone had the cheaper offer, but the connection in the countryside was massively worse than that of Telstra. So if you know that you will often go on excursions far from the cities and still want to have internet access, you better choose Telstra. As for the bank, I chose a Commonwealth Bank student offer and was satisfied.
Leisure
Various agencies sell excursions and trips within Australia, although the quality of their advice can vary greatly. The advice from Student Uni Travel for my Uluru trip was intrusive and inadequate. That’s why I then booked all other excursions (Fraser Island, Whitsunday sailing trip, Daintree Rainforest, Tasmania, Great Ocean Road and Kangaroo Island) with Adventure Travel Bugs and felt very well advised. But also in Sydney itself there are several costal walks in addition to the Taronga Zoo (e. g. Bondi to Coogee and Spit Bridge to Manly), which are highly recommended, and a trip by ferry to Manly is an absolute highlight. In a two-hour train ride, a trip to the Blue Mountains to Katoomba is also possible, which I really liked.
The website www. skyscanner. com. au is recommended for booking domestic flights.
University
The University of Technology is a comparatively young university. Accordingly, a lot is being invested in the infrastructure. This year, a new, not only ultra-modern, but also architecturally appealing business building was opened. There is a very nice café where you can also enjoy snacks. Finally, in the main building there is a food court, where you can choose from a wide range. The library offers enough workstations with or without computers and group rooms can be booked. Next to the library building is the Paddy’s Markets shopping center, where there is a large Asian food court on the top floor with a great deal of food.
When choosing a course, it should be noted that certain undergraduate courses can be taken into account in the context of the HSG, but at the UTS these can sometimes be rather strictly graded compulsory courses in the first semester. So I have the Managing People and Organizations course, which is a basic course for undergraduate business studies at UTS. The focus was on the distinction between the bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic structure of organizations and the issues arising from them. Examination achievements were two essays and a written exam. In addition to a weekly lecture, this course also included a weekly practice unit, which was completed in groups of five people. Not all group members had the same motivation, which made the discussion of texts sometimes extremely boring. I also attended two postgraduate courses. From the Managing Culture and Change course, I have benefited the most in terms of content. In numerous case studies, we have analyzed the effect of culture on the change behavior of companies (and vice versa). In a group work, we took a closer look at the change in culture at Bank UBS. In addition, a Pecha Kucha presentation and an essay were the examination performance. The Economics for Management course dealt halfway with micro and macroeconomics and was a very good look back at the economics content of my previous degree. The pace was extremely fast, which is why I was glad that some topics were already being dealt with at the HSG. In addition to a mid-term and a final exam, it was necessary to work out an outlook on the Australian economy in a written group work.
We particularly recommend using HELPS, a university service for exchange students. Especially when writing essays, you will be individually helped in a 40-minute session to improve what you have written. Exchange students can also request an extension of the examination time and the use of an English dictionary for the exams.
OVERALL OPINION
I am completely satisfied with my choice of going to the UTS in Sydney because the quality of the universities is high and life in Sydney is pleasant and extremely varied. As in all of Australia, in Sydney I got to know, for the most part, warm, open and helpful people. In addition, Australia is hard to beat in terms of versatility, which is why you can discover a fantastic country from Sydney during the semester break and before or after the semester, to which you may not travel again soon.
