EMILY Pollington has travelled 12,500 kilometres to begin her third year of university – and her first on Australian soil.
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The native of Canada is in the third year of a forestry degree at Ontario’s Lakehead University, and has found her way to Charles Sturt University on exchange for semester one.
Now enjoying her first O-Week in the southern hemisphere, she said it was her father who had inspired her to come to Australia.
“My dad came to Australia when he was younger and still has stories about it,” she said.
“I really wanted a change of scenery as well, I’m a third year forestry student and after seeing the Boreal forest for three years I kind of wanted something new.
“I’ve never travelled either, so when Lakehead offered this with CSU as a partner school I jumped at the chance.”
Emily touched down in early January and backpacked her way down the eastern seaboard before arriving on the Border for O-Week – with her stop in the Blue Mountains a highlight.
Faculty of Science course director Matthew Hunt said O-Week activities like the beach Olympics at the Albury-Wodonga Yacht Club were a unique and important experience for first-year students in particular.
“This is an ice-breaker week where all these students who come from around the country meet each other, get to know each other, and have a bit of fun with it,” he said.
“It's important to get these bonds going early, to meet some of the academic staff.
“Compared to big city campuses it's a big difference, they wouldn’t get anything like this.
“They have about 1000 commencing students, but by the time these students here finish up this week they'll be mates.
“A lot of these students are nervous, they're leaving home for the first time and living on campus.
“This is a lot better than just jumping straight into your first classes.”
While the environmental science students were put through their paces, students in the School of Community Health enjoyed their own O-Week activity day.
CSU will hold enrolment and course information days on Wednesday and Thursday.