During my time abroad there is one soft skill that I have definitely used and fine-tuned, interacting in foreign areas. Australia is by no means as much of a foreign country when compared to Japan or India where there are large cultural and language differences. Still, Australia presents the need to have the soft skill of interacting to areas or customs I am not used to. I keep finding myself practicing this skill in new areas as I have been traveling to new locations for weekend trips and spring break. For example, I flew into Tasmania and had to figure out how to navigate to the places I wanted to hike. I also had to be resourceful in asking the locals in a polite way about where to stay and the best way to travel. This soft skill of interacting in a new area helped me tremendously specifically in Tasmania when I learned the locals do not drive at night due to the large amounts of road kill that occurs at night. I found this information out from a local after I landed and my plans changed entirely. This brings up another soft skill of being adaptable. Although being adaptable is not the skill I developed most while abroad, because I feel I have always been adaptable, I would definitely say that it is the most important soft skill to have when studying abroad.

There are hard two skills I have developed throughout this program. One relates closely to interacting with foreign areas and it’s the skill of travel planning through public and economic means. The other skill was one used in all of my classes and that using and navigating databases efficiently to complete course work. While both of these skills I already used at home, seeing them in a new environment helps me get a better understanding of them.

During my spring break trip, I went to Singapore and Bali Indonesia where I encountered many cultural differences and language barriers. In Singapore, it is against the law to CHEW GUM! For Bali, everywhere I went I was met with locals trying to flag me down and sell me something. This part was actually quite fun negotiating prices on a hat or small wooden nik naks. That goes to show the different types of cultures I witnessed. Seeing the world from different perspectives, it opens up my eyes on how I live my life and how much more there is to see.

Here is a picture from Coles Bay in Tasmania.

Here is a picture of me on Penida Island in Bali.