While a typical course of study at Waterloo includes co-op work terms and on-campus coursework, these Math students found they had a lot to learn by traveling much farther. Here’s what they had to say about their adventures thousands of kilometers from home.
Narayan Subramoniam, 5th year Math and Business
Location: United Kingdom (U.K.)
Narayan Subramonian chose the U.K. because of its rich and complicated historical legacy. Besides learning to manage his time better and give himself permission to relax, he became more adventurous.
“I hitchhiked, couch surfed, and made friends in the oddest of places,” he says. Some of those odd locations included “a bus ride in Albania” and “a train ride in Germany.”
He also discovered a new love for outdoor activities such as sailing, wild swimming and hiking. He and some friends summited all three peaks in Yorkshire Dales National Park, a 35 km hike in one day! After watching the sun set in a purple haze over the horizon, they celebrated with a pint and chips at a local pub. It doesn’t get much more U.K. than that.
His advice?
“Math students are seen as - for some reason - wizards in the U.K., so please keep up the charade!”
Jeremy Zhu, 3rd year Financial Analysis and Risk Management
Location: Hong Kong
Jeremy Zhu chose Hong Kong because it’s an international city and one of the world’s financial centres. The most memorable moment of the trip for him was his first day in Hong Kong.
“I felt excited to start a new journey in a new city. But also I worried a lot,” he says.
Initially, he found living in a foreign country to be isolating. The experience pushed him to become more proactive about making friends, and soon he had a large friend group of locals and other exchange students.
Zhu has two pieces of advice for students interested in studying abroad.
Save your electives for study abroad, and “enjoy the ride as much as you can.”
Rachel Butler, 3rd year Computing and Financial Management
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Rachel Butler wanted to study abroad in winter term, so she chose the warmest place she could think of that time of year: Australia. She was surprised by how similar Melbourne was to Toronto, and soon fit right in. She worked odd jobs, including modeling, selling cars and hosting trivia nights.
Her most memorable experience was an outdoor adventure. Her friends rented two vans and went camping in the outback of Tasmania.
“Tasmania itself is quite unique, with us seeing Caribbean-blue oceans and white sand beaches one day, and snow in the mountains the next,” she says.
Butler says the biggest lesson she learned was that “with studying abroad, there is no one set plan. No two people are doing the exact same thing, which is really the beauty of it. The experience is yours to make.”
Anjing Li, 3rd year Computer Science
Location: Akita, Japan
Anjing Li loves Japanese culture and wanted to spend time immersing herself in it. In between classes at Akita International University, she says, “I learned about tea ceremonies, social customs and kimonos, alongside getting to spend time browsing anime stores in Akihabara and shopping for clothes in Shibuya.”
One of the biggest challenges for her was adapting to a new language and writing system. She learned Japanese hiragana and katakana (forms of writing) that allowed her to buy groceries and understand vending machines.
“Also, I learned simple phrases like ‘Sumimasen!’ to say excuse me to strangers when traveling.”
The biggest lesson she learned from studying abroad was that she could trust herself to be independent and solve problems.
Sherry Chang, 4th year Financial Analysis and Risk Management
Location: Singapore
After years of lonely studying during the pandemic, Sherry Chang wanted an adventure. She chose the National University of Singapore because of its excellent academic reputation and transferable credits.
Unlike some of her peers, Chang’s most memorable study abroad experience was actually in the classroom! On the first day of her mathematical statistics course, her professor explained the topic with “an enthusiasm typically reserved for unveiling intricate and pivotal principles, even though the subject matter was essentially a foundational recap.”
Studying abroad reawakened Chang’s love of learning for its own sake. Instead of focusing entirely on her GPA and job prospects, she says, “I found joy in the learning process itself.”
You can learn more about opportunities to study abroad from the Student Success Office.
