Exchange student - Bodye Darvill (text version)

Bodye Darvill talks about her experiences as an intercampus exchange student to Monash South Africa .

What was the best part of your exchange experience?

One of the best things was definitely the people that I met. Wonderful, wonderful friends. I had great times – not only parties and going out but, I'd never lived in res before so sitting and chatting in people's rooms, being around other people all the time really helped me to make strong friends while I was there and that was great. Everyone was so friendly and so welcoming.

Has the experience changed the way you view the world?

I was able to see first-hand some things that I've only ever seen on television, like, when you think of Africa you think of poverty and extreme wealth and that was one the things that we experienced in South Africa where you've got this beautiful, glorious campus and just down the road you have this squatter camp and we see people who live on the streets, they don't have homes. I joined the volunteer program there and we went and painted schools and we worked with kids and did sports days and things like that and that was really great to help out.

What advice would you give to someone considering going on exchange?

I think one part of my world view that has changed is, because I've never been overseas, it was really interesting to be an Australian in another country. Where I've never particularly thought of myself as being an Australian before, when I went away, that really became a part of my identity and seeing people from other countries or people in their own country, how they related to each other and to what was going on around them was really interesting.