[188 GUEST] How You Can Come to Australia to Study (Chat with Soraya from Tour Studies)

How You Can Study in Australia – Tour Studies

We chat with Soraya from Tour Studies, a company that specializes in helping people study in Australia. We start off by chatting about her experience of living here as a newbie (a newcomer), learning English, looking for work and finally about Tour Studies. Enjoy :)

Links mentioned

Tour Studies – helps you get a student visa so you can come to study in Australia.

Chat Summary

We chat with Soraya form Tour Studies

– Soraya Rojas’ background: She is from Chile, arrived in Australia 2011, came to study English then went onto study diploma in Tourism. She came to Australia to study English because it’s different to the US, Canada or England – and I chose Australia because of the wildlife and native animals
– I asked Soraya if she had seen a snake in Australia yet. Soraya tells us a story of how she saw a snake in Wilsons’ Prom in Australia
– Soraya also took English courses in Chile, in a town called Concepcíon and she thought it was a waste of money for her. But at least she improved her vocabulary. She was shy to speak in English with people. Only when she came to Australia she opted for the full time English courses, this is how she felt brave to speak English.
– The first time she spoke in English she was looking for a mobile phone, but she asked the shop assistant in Spanish – cellular in Spanish means mobile phone.
– She completed a diploma in Tourism
– Soraya didn’t get a job straight after completing the diploma, she used to be invited for interviews but she was too uncomfortable to speak over the phone with agents that she would hang up the phone! So she decided to take odd jobs like doing fund raising for charities (asking for coin donations from car drivers)
– I asked Soraya: Did you have anybody to help you with looking for work, doing CV’s and so on?
– No she didn’t. Soraya had to learn it by herself.
– Soraya had to go back to Chile but she missed Australia so much that she found a way to go back to Australia. She also met a partner who is Australian. Then they both came to Australia.
– Soraya tells us that the reason she couldn’t improve her English fast enough is because she used to flat share with Latin people, her Chilean friends. Obviously, they would speak in Spanish in the house which didn’t help her.
– Milena says that flat sharing is very common in Australia, you can live with someone you don’t know, for example: you can share a flat with an Australian person, so that situation forces you to speak English.
– After a couple of years living in Australia, one of her friends recommended she applies for a job at a small travel agency. No one helped her with her CV at the time, nor to prepare her for job interviews. She had to learn this all by herself, and it was a stressful process for her. She was happy to finally get a job in Australia – it was a part time job.
– Soraya can finally call Australia home after she had been living there for 2 years.
– She began to have struggles with writing emails – she thought her English was fine until she had to write emails. Being on the phone was also a struggle. Most of the time she couldn’t understand things or to spell names.
– NOISE: Truck picking up hard rubbish can be heard.
– Inorganic rubbish or hard rubbish – if you have any unused furniture lying around the house that you don’t need anymore, you can throw it out on the nature strip and the council will come to collect it. (This is not rubbish from the food in the kitchen.)
– Would you recommend your friends to come to Australia? She firmly recommends her friends to come here. All her friends want to come to Australia, how did she do it and how can they do it. Chile has a Working Holiday Visa with Australia for people who are between the ages of 18-30.
– Some of her friends who travelled to Canada say that it is very cold over there, sometimes in winter people don’t go outside, in terms of economy it’s similar to Australia. She wouldn’t go to the US, England is also cold… so Australia and New Zealand are both beautiful. NZ is smaller than Australia but has a similar culture.
– She loved Australia so much that she started a business called Tour Studies. It is an agency that helps people who come to Australia for study purposes. She helps them with University applications, for English schools, she also organises Insurance and accommodation.
– You can get in touch with Soraya and her colleagues in Chile, go to www.Tour Studies.com (To book a free consultation with Soraya, just mention you heard about Tour Studies on the English Made Simple podcast when you contact her :))