AusAID students enjoy beach on big day out

Jason Tozer

The students met the local wildlife on their day out

31 March 2008: A trip to the beach was the highlight of the introductory program for the University's latest group of AusAID scholarship recipients.

The students from aross the globe all agree the Introductory Academic Program (IAP) has helped them settle into their new environment and prepared them for study immediately.

IAP helped the AusAID students prepare for life at the University and its surrounding region by providing a number of seminars and excursions, with the students enjoying a recent “Big Day Out” excursion to Bateman’s Bay and its surrounding area.

Indonesian master in teaching english to speakers of other languages (TESOL) student Andi Musafir Rusyaidi says he enjoyed the time to bond with other students and getting up close with Australian wildlife.

“It was great to interact with other people outside of an academic environment,” Mr Rsyaidi said.

“The most interesting thing for me was the way we could interact with the wild parrots – you can’t do that in Indonesia except in a zoo.”

For Kurdish PhD student Ala Jabar Mohammed, the best part of the excursion was seeing something her landlocked home region doesn’t have.

“We don’t have beaches back at home, so that for me was really exciting,” Ms Mohammed said.

Papua New Guinean Masters in law student Anna Raymond says the excursions weren’t the only highlight of the IAP program.

“IAP helps you really settle into a new environment and personally felt it prepared me for orientation and commencement of my studies,” Ms Raymond said.