UTS is in Ultimo, right by Central Station, but my favorite place so far is Manly. You take the ferry from Circular Quay, and the ride alone is worth it because you pass the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. Then there’s the main beach plus Shelly Beach, a quieter cove just a short walk away. It’s become my go-to weekend spot. Honestly, it’s a nice break from the city.
UTS reminds me a lot of Pitt because both are city campuses. There’s no big grassy quad, just buildings mixed into the city. The UTS Tower is kind of like the Cathedral of Learning, except instead of looking like Hogwarts, it looks like a giant concrete block. My favorite building is the Business School, which Frank Gehry designed to look like a crumpled paper bag.
The biggest difference is school spirit. At Pitt, everyone wears Pitt gear and goes to football games. Here, a lot of students live at home and commute, so campus gets quiet at night. Classes are also more independent. Professors go by their first names and don’t really remind you about deadlines. You’re expected to keep up on your own.
I’m interning at CareGP, a healthcare startup. My day usually looks like building financial dashboards and doing payment reconciliation, which means making sure the money coming in matches our records. Since it’s a startup, the team is small, so I get to help with lots of different things instead of doing the same task over and over. Working on dashboards has also made me way more comfortable with spreadsheets, and it connects to what I’m learning in International Finance.
I’m also taking four classes: International Finance, Environmental Science, Exploring Sydney, and an internship class. International Finance is the closest to a normal Pitt class, but it’s cool learning it from outside the U.S. Exploring Sydney is my favorite because class sometimes means actually going out into the city. Environmental Science is something I’d probably never take at Pitt as a business student, but learning about Australia’s ecosystems has been really interesting.
I think the most important skills in healthcare startups are adaptability and communication. Things change fast, and you have to be okay asking questions when you don’t know something. That’s what I’m working on most. At first I was nervous to speak up in meetings, but now I make myself share at least one idea each time. I’m learning way more because of it.