作者：Shu-Min, Wang (Tracy)

I have been in Sydney for eight months now.  For the first two months, I was always asking myself why I was here.  I was terribly homesick and had a very bad flu for a week.  Even though I made a lot of friends as well as began to understand the environment which I was in, it was still confusing.

After two months, I racked my brains about extending my English course.  Finally I did and changed to the Sydney College of English where I wanted to start a different experience in Sydney.  I enjoy studying General English in the mornings and elective courses in the afternoons.  I will never forget the Speaking Effectively elective course because the teacher took notice of my pronunciation and grammar all the time.  In this class, we were asked to focus on fluency and accuracy and how to sound natural when we speak.

There are students from extremely diverse countries, so I can explore different cultural backgrounds.  I have taken part in several activities that have been reasonably priced and a lot of fun.

I go to the gym everyday and watch movies in cinemas, which are cheap but have good facilities.  My life in Sydney has become colorful.  I especially like it when my friends tell me my English has improved or when native speakers of English praise my English as very good.  It is a sort of encouragement.

In my opinion, making friends is a good way to get rid of homesickness.  It is also very important to speak English without worrying about mistakes.  Keeping an open-minded attitude makes you happy all the time.  This is my experience and what I would say to students in my position.

I am going back to Taiwan soon.   I hope I will be able to come back to Sydney again.  Even if I had a hard time at the beginning of my stay here, it was worth being independent.  In short, I am glad to be an overseas student in Australia.

資料來源：Sydney College of English