Study abroad

Sunny Liu is a Master of Teaching student at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Having lived in Australia for almost seven years, Sunny moved from Melbourne to Darwin in July 2019 and fell in love with the lifestyle, scenery and welcoming local community.

The Covid-19 pandemic has redefined the typical college experience for international students. As a first-year international student at the University of California, San Diego, I have not yet had the chance to visit the campus, nor meet any of my classmates in person. Instead, I learned from home in Canada.

Before the pandemic, it was standard practice that all aspiring international students would sit an in-person exam to meet English language requirements to enrol in English-speaking universities.

For the million foreign students who study here in America, it has been a long, testing four years.

From threatening to deport those whose classes were moved online, to banning students from (mostly) poor countries from obtaining the necessary four-year student visa, to cracking down on Chinese students and researchers, the recently ejected president Donald Trump spent much of his time trying to push international students out of his country.

I am Jian Feng, the first ever international student executive officer at the University of Leeds’ students’ union. I want to share with you my journey during the coronavirus pandemic. 

As the clock struck midnight on 1 January 2021, the start of the new year also marked the end of the UK’s membership in the European Union. 

And with that, it also meant that the UK was no longer a part of the EU’s Erasmus+ programme, which has enabled university staff and student exchanges across Europe. 

The UK has instead created its own programme, the Turing scheme (named after pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing).

However, Turing differs from Erasmus+ in a few ways.

I studied at Loughborough University in London from September 2015 to December 2016.

When I first arrived I could smell new carpets and see glossy reflections on the recently polished glass walls. An ambitious road map of the city’s emerging hub could be seen in the ongoing construction work in Here East, east London, where the campus was located. We were its very first students in the very first year and everything was so shiny and new. 

I chose to study in the UK as an international student because of the global reputation of its universities, the prospect of an excellent education and the chance to widen my experiences and meet people from all over the world.

More precisely, I chose the University of Liverpool for my undergraduate degree because of its research excellence and ranking, availability of international tuition fee scholarships and its location in a cost-effective city.