It has been 5 days since landing in Sydney, and the program has been great!I just finished my first day of classes and am excited for the rest of the program. The CEA CAPA housing is called Scape and is based in the Haymarket area of Sydney which is right next to Chinatown and Darling Harbor. It is a central location with lots of different dining and entertainment. It is especially busy during this time of year due to the Vivid Festival currently going on that includes light shows, concerts, and food vendors.

Scape is right next to a promenade that goes along Darling Harbor that is great for a morning run. There is a light rail line close by that runs along George Street that has many shops and acts as a transportation hub to get to key places like the Sydney Opera House or Bondi Beach.

I live in an apartment at Scape with 7 other roommates. There are 4 bedrooms that each have 2 beds and a bathroom. There is also a kitchen with 2 stove tops and 2 dishwashers. 4 of us are from the University of Pittsburgh, and our other roommates are from the University of Florida, SUNY Oswego, Southern Methodist University, and Hamline University. Even though we come from different areas we all got along very quickly.

Adapting has been fairly easy but the most difficult part was the jet lag. My flight arrived in Sydney at 6 am, and it was hard to stay awake the first day. The schedule for the first couple of days is very active, which I found helpful for adjusting to the time zone since we didn’t have much downtime. On the first day, we took a morning tour around the neighborhood, and my roommates and I did some food shopping. The second day was program orientation that lasted the whole day. For the weekend we did a Sydney Harbor cruise and a hiking trip to the Blue Mountains.

I just finished up my first day of interning and classes and have a pretty good idea of how the 6 weeks will be. I notice a lot of similarities and differences between CEA CAPA and the University of Pittsburgh. The classes I am taking are an Urban Studies class and an internship workshop class that complements working the internship. The Urban Studies class is different because you are assigned to explore areas of the city as a group. The class sizes are a lot smaller than the usual Pitt class. I have 4 people in my Urban Studies class and 16 in my internship class. The class lengths are 5 hrs/week for the Urban Studies class and 1.5 hrs/week for the internship class. In terms of grading, attendance is mandatory and there are primarily group presentations and writing assignments. I will be working at my internship 20 hours during the week. This will be a mix of hybrid and in-person work. Monday and Friday will be virtual and Wednesdays will be in person. Tuesdays and Thursdays are for classes.

I am an intern at Wavelength International which is a medical recruitment company, and I will be helping with their major digital transformation project that includes building and implementing new systems and automations for their payroll, finance, and document storage. In order to be successful in my internship and in the classroom, I will need to manage my time as much as possible. Doing this will allow me to balance my time interning, doing class work, and traveling.