Ever thought how an experience has improved your practice? Ever felt stressed because things aren’t working out as expected?

Adjusting to New Things (Video 19)

Transcript:

Presenter:
What types of things are most difficult to adjust to? These students give many different examples of getting used to a new place.

Nursing Student (China):
From my country, you know, on my clinical Prac in China the buddy nurse there teaches us everything and if we don’t know we really don’t ask them for help, we need to check the books at home but for here when buddy nurse asks something, if you don’t know you can ask them for help. I think it’s totally different, yeah.

Business Student (India):
I came to Australia like two years ago and as soon as I arrived in Australia like I had a problem with accommodation and stuff and later on I could sort it out easily through my university. They helped me a lot.

Public Health Student (United States):
The most stressful situation I’ve had when I first got here was figuring out the bus, trying to get from home to campus or anywhere around town. There’s lots of options, and at first it’s very overwhelming but if you talk to someone or if you’re at a bus interchange or Stop and you don’t really know where you’re going, definitely ask anyone there because they’re all very friendly and very helpful. After a couple of days you definitely get into a routine and you know which buses to take and where to go.

Public Health Student (Bangladesh):
When I first came here from Bangladesh the first thing that was stressful was communication with Bangladesh and also transport within Brisbane so that was too difficult and my homestay Mum she helped me a lot to fix this problem.

Psychology Student (Sweden):
When I first came here from Sweden the biggest stress for me was starting my University studies as things are done slightly differently here so I had to learn what was expected of me, I guess, and there was the language barrier at the time. I did feel that I wasn’t as proficient in English as the rest of my classmates, those were slightly stressful things for me.

Public Health Student (United States):
Driving on the opposite side of the road, that’s very different, sometimes I forget to look which way to look to cross the street - which is slightly important. Still getting used to it and hopefully I’ll figure it out by the end.

Nursing Student (China):
In China the teachers in our lectures, they teach us everything, we just remember the knowledge and remember as much as possible. But here we couldn’t remember everything -we need to investigate it after the class, or after the lecture. We need to make good use of the library and the internet. We should find out ourselves, here, so it’s a little different from my country yeah.

Public Health Student (United States):
To cope with stress when I first got here there was definitely lots of exercising to just go run, go walk, just get out and just work it out and that helps to definitely relieve stress.

Business Student (India):
We usually have a socialising network like we get around each other and have a cup of coffee, discuss the cultural difference between the different students, where they are from, the different cultural background.

Public Health Student (United States):
Just really involve yourself, make friends on campus or wherever you’re living and really just go and explore the city and see what it has to offer and there may be something that you’re interested in that you can become a part of also in the city, not part of campus. There are lots of opportunities to travel and meet new people and try new things.

Nursing Student (China):
Oh you know there are a lot of assignments here I need to do, a lot of investigations; for example, sometimes I don’t know how to write an assignment I could go to the library, the library helping desk, ask them for help.