Hi everyone, I’m Jinane Amal and I’m an exchange student from France.
The Australian culture has always fascinated me since I was little, Sydney especially, has always been on the top of my bucket list which is the reason why I chose to study at UTS.
Unfortunately, for covid reasons we, exchange students couldn’t go. However the UTS team hasn’t forgotten about us; they installed the Beyond Borders program to engage, connect with us (international students) and furthermore immerse us in the Australian culture through a model they have created named Culture Connect. It contains really fun informative videos and blogs and at the end you can even test yourself about what you just learned with the quizzes they implemented.
They also established a Beyond Borders Ambassador Program to which I applied, with the goal being to create a fun virtual atmosphere to make new connections and connect the different nationalities that are taking part in the Beyond Borders program through our common interest for Australia and its heart warming and welcoming culture.
I was honoured to be selected as one of the Beyond Borders Ambassadors as I felt closer to the UTS community despite the distance, not only that I felt helpful and useful. As it turns out, this experience has given me an insight on what working with the UTS administration staff is like and despite it not being their principal goal, being an ambassador taught me so much about managing studies with work and extracurricular activities.
Indeed with the right mindset you can do more than what you think, you can surpass yourself if and only if you put your mind to it. With doing more, comes having an impact in some way which is one of the most valuable things to me.
From learning how to use Canva to make appealing presentations, to searching for new and fun tools to create stories and polls about what and when to plan events, to posting games and quizzes stories (that were mostly ‘international‘ themed 😀 ) so as to actually engage with all the UTS students. I strongly advise you to apply for the Beyond Borders ambassador position, particularly if you are organised, skilled with all that is social media related and last but certainly not least if you are comfortable talking in camera with new people (that will promptly become your good friends or maybe even best friends who knows 😀 ).
I promise you, you will not regret it, in fact you will most definitely love it! Not to mention that you will obtain a certain personal growth thanks to it without even realising, as I personally didn't realise until writing about it just now.
A special thanks to Mrs Kartika, Lisa, Katie and Lily for letting me have such an opportunity! 😀 A special thanks to Ines as well who I got to meet thanks to this program (another Beyond Borders ambassador who has great sense of humour and delicious food ideas). From strangers to internet friends I hope that we’ll meet soon as we are both in Europe and love traveling the world 😀 !!!
Name: Jinane Amal
Home Country: France