My Study Abroad Experience

Daniela Gelic

Autumn 2025 Study Abroad student from Hochschule Ansbach

Ansbach, Germany

"Every single day, I stepped onto campus with a smile — grateful, curious, and ready to learn."

My semester abroad at the University of Technology Sydney is going exactly as I had planned. I am taking 3 courses with different focuses in the media industry

and have already learned so many new things and got to know so many inspiring people.

As I had hoped, the university here offers me resources and opportunities that I would not have at my home university in Germany, which of course enriches me greatly. For example, I can book the equipment of the media faculty and especially the music studio at any time and use it for private exercises. I have often made use of this offer. It's not just the infrastructure that is excellent, I also love the teaching here. Unlike in Germany, continuous learning progress is constantly monitored and active participation is very much in demand, which of course also promotes teamwork and intellectual discourse.

In the subject Screen Soundtrack Production, which I subsequently swapped with

another subject, I have a renowned film composer as a teacher, which I really appreciate.

He was able to give us students some very valuable practical tips and, above all, taught us what is most important in film composition. In the first part of the course, we used individual case studies to analyze various film scores. After a first assignment, for which I composed a film score for a short clip, I was able to take on the second assignment, namely a collaboration with animation students and thus a “real work-life experience”. The aim is to work with the animators to create the sound and music for a short feature film. At the moment, I'm almost at the end of this great project, where I've been able to learn a lot about the work processes in the film music industry and, above all, improve my interpersonal communication skills when working in a team on such a large project.

But it's not just this subject that has enriched my knowledge in the audiovisual field; the

Audio and Music Production subject has also helped me this semester. Step by step throughout the semester, we got to know all the individual processes involved in mixing a

song and applied them directly in a practical context. The supervision was ideal, as we

worked in small groups in the music lab and were therefore able to resolve any questions

and difficulties quickly. I probably made the most professional progress in this subject, as

I learned so many new techniques and am now much more familiar with the ProTools

program. The big final project in this subject, which I am still working on, involves

recording a band in the university's music studio as part of a team and then producing a

finished song myself. Organizing the entire recording in the studio on my own was a very

challenging but also rewarding experience, as this process also came very close to a real

working life experience and I was able to gain my first professional experience here too.

My third subject, Creating Documentary, is no less exciting than the first two subjects and

was probably also the most time-consuming subject. At the beginning, I was able to learn

a lot about the origins and the art form of documentary film, while also working on the first

assignment, namely the creation of a biographical documentary film about myself. This

first part of the module was very intensive, as I first had to think deeply about myself and

the content of the film and collect archive material from my entire life. Nevertheless, I

really enjoyed working on the film and the feedback from my professor was also very

positive. I got one of the best grades on this project which only increased my motivation

for the second major project of the semester, as the goal for this project was to create a

7-minute documentary on a topic of my choice. My group decided to portray a 74-year old

retired filmmaker who now wants to use his remaining time to do good in the world.

In summary, I can say that my study abroad program has gone perfectly so far, I have been

able to expand my specialist knowledge comprehensively and gain valuable practical

experience for my professional future.