I honestly did not have a ton of expectations coming into my study abroad program. I really wasn’t sure how anything would be, and just wanted to take everything as it came and enjoy it to the fullest extent. That being said, I did have general expectations, for example, I expected that the courses I took would build off of what I’ve learned in previous business courses and offer valuable knowledge I would be able to take back to Pitt. The courses that I am taking while here are International Marketing, International Economics, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior, and Analysing and Exploring the Global City: Sydney. I was very excited about these, as a Marketing and Global Management major, these courses tie perfectly into my interests and what I’ve already been learning about in previous courses. I do not think that my academic expectation of building on previous knowledge as well as offering new insights has changed at all, and my expectation has definitely been met up to this point. All of my professors have super unique experiences and are able to tie them so well into course content and not only makes the classes more engaging, but more relatable.

Professionally, I would say my expectations have been exceeded. I had very low professional expectations coming in just because I am not completing an internship while here. That being said, I have stepped into the role of student representative events lead for our program. This has offered me a lot of professional development. We have weekly meetings where the five student representatives rotate taking minutes. Just recently the CAPA program merged with CEA and I, along with the other student representatives, were tasked with helping to run the launch of this and I was given the opportunity to develop my networking skills as a lot of professionals in the Sydney area attended. 

Rounding out my expectations with personal ones, the biggest expectation I had was to just grow as a person. I can confidently say this expectation has not changed and I have already seen it coming to fruition. Being forced to quickly settle in as classes started just four days after arriving here and make new friends with both my roommates and classmates was very beneficial for me. I feel as though I am now a more confident version of myself and feel well-equipped to take on a variety of new situations and environments.