Southport, Queensland, Avustralya
How did you make friends as an international student?
PhD in Electrical Engineering
My experience in making friends abroad proved to be quite straightforward. I always present a friendly demeanor and approach others with ease, and I am consistently delighted to forge new friendships with individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds. To facilitate these connections, I regularly attend and actively participate in various activities and events organized both within and outside the university setting. The Gold Coast and Brisbane, being multicultural cities, offer a plethora of events and communities to explore. The key, as I see it, is to be kind, smile, engage in conversation, and, most importantly, respect personal boundaries by refraining from asking overly personal questions. By doing so, individuals feel more at ease in conversing with you, making it easier to establish friendships.
Student experience
What support services are there and which have you used?
PhD in Electrical Engineering
One of the best services offered by Griffith University for both international and local students is Student Support. You can find their team inside the library on both the Nathan and Gold Coast campuses. They are always ready to assist students with their assignments and can refer them to the appropriate staff member for further help when needed. In addition, you can contact the Student Support team via email, and they usually respond promptly. Furthermore, Griffith Mates is a vibrant community of current Australian and international students from around the world. The team welcomes thousands of new international students each year, helping them adjust to university life in Australia. They regularly host both on-campus and online activities, providing excellent opportunities to practise English, make new friends, explore the campus, and become familiar with Australian culture and lifestyle.
Student life
What are the teachers like at Griffith?
Master of in Clinical Dentistry
In the dentistry faculty, we have a large variety of teachers for each course with a variety of knowledge and personalities. This makes it difficult to answer what the teachers are like... some are good at explaining concepts or demonstrating techniques, while others are good mentors and support students, and some you may not get on with which is a normal part of life. Our dental courses are composed of multiple disciplines (for example one of our courses has sub-course disciplines of Oral Surgery, Oral Pathology, and Local Anaesthetics). For each discipline we have a lecture professor in pre-recorded content, a professor that runs the in-person simulation lab component, and multiple lab tutors that critique and mark each student's work. Additionally, when in clinic working on patients, we generally have 3-4 sessions each week with each session having a dedicated tutor. Generally, clinic and lab tutors answer most student questions since we see these tutors on a daily basis and develop more of a mentor-type relationship. As for contacting professors outside of class time, some are very responsive to emails, while others request asking questions through cohort class representatives. We have 1-2 Q&A sessions each semester where questions collected from the students are answered. The main discipline professors tend to do Q&A sessions as they are specialists in charge of the course but also run the Post Graduate Programs, do research, and often supervise Masters students research, which leaves little time to answer student questions.
Education and research
