Neil Taylor

I went to the University of Otago, in Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. Dunedin is the furthest city in the world from Edinburgh so I properly got to go somewhere on the other side of the world!

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An exchange is for a full academic year. For me, that was July-June, with a summer holiday in November-February, which gave me some great travelling time.

I learned a whole bunch of important things: the way Edinburgh teaches is not the only, or even the best, way of teaching at university; you can make friends with people who you have no similar background to whatsoever; opportunities are the best when you grasp them with both hands.

Being so far away from home challenged me, definitely! And because of the way the year was structured, I lost a lot of friends I made in the first semester going into the second semester, as they graduated or went home. But both of these were transient problems that seemed big at the time, but actually were nothing in retrospect.

It's a cliche but I loved pretty much everything! The country was absolutely stunning, and I wish I could have seen more of it. I made friends from around the world who are going to be friends for life. And I learned to be truly independent beyond any support I had back in the UK, which was freeing.

General Exchange guidelines for Biomedical Students