A transferable or “soft” skill that has been very present throughout this experience so far is adaptability. As with many types of travel, you have to be adaptable in order to be resilient when things do not go to plan. Recently my friends and I traveled to Bali and Kuala Lumpur for spring break. On these trips, we had to plan for the unexpected and adapt to the local way of doing things. Another transferable skill that I have worked on during this study abroad experience has been time management. With having an internship, classes, and wanting to explore Sydney, it has become very important to plan out my assignments accordingly. I find it very helpful to travel to local cafes and libraries to complete all my work at once.
A technical or “hard” skill that I have developed since being in Sydney has been market research and sales. My internship with Visuo, an AI sales tech firm, includes researching the democratic political marketing field for potential clients. I have become more skilled in using platforms such as LinkedIn to find a large scale of candidates. I anticipate growing my sale skills more as well within the next few weeks when I begin reaching out to these potential clients.
One cross-cultural difference that I have noticed in Sydney and in our trips outside of the city is differences in the tone and volume of voice we have as Americans. It’s a common thing to hear that Americans are naturally loud people; however, I have not seen that play out as much as I have in recent months. When entering places such as cafes, shops, restaurants, etc I always have to be mindful to tone down my volume. Though this is a somewhat smaller cultural difference in the grand scheme of things, it is definitely one I notice every day here.
Another interesting thing to see is how involved Australians can be in U.S. politics. One of the first things I get asked as an American is something surrounding the recent changes in U.S. politics. It’s interesting how, compared to living in the U.S., people have such a global view here. Even in our business class content, we learn a lot about other countries and how the context of what we are learning applies globally. For example, in my finance class, we learn about current events that affect the global markets. We also learn about specific financial situations that many countries around the world face. I find it interesting that we don’t learn about many of these things in American universities.
