{"id":4769,"date":"2016-07-21T12:08:28","date_gmt":"2016-07-21T00:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auip.com\/?p=4769"},"modified":"2016-07-21T12:08:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-21T00:08:28","slug":"its-not-where-you-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/its-not-where-you-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Perspective: &#8220;It&#8217;s not where you are, it&#8217;s who you&#8217;re with.&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Katerina Alemis, the <\/em><em><a href=\"http:\/\/auip.com\/illinois-abroad-programs\/\" target=\"_blank\">Illinois Abroad<\/a><\/em><em> marketing intern, writes: <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Fun-with-Aboriginal-tour-guides-.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4771\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Fun-with-Aboriginal-tour-guides--300x194.jpg\" alt=\"Fun with Aboriginal tour guides\" width=\"300\" height=\"194\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Fun-with-Aboriginal-tour-guides--300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Fun-with-Aboriginal-tour-guides-.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>The saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not where you are, it\u2019s who you\u2019re with,\u201d is one that truly resonated with me throughout my time in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.australia.com\/en-nz\" target=\"_blank\">Australia<\/a>. After eight weeks of class together, I still felt overwhelmed by the fact that I was going to travel halfway across the world with a group of people whose names I could barely remember. Oddly enough, a twelve hour delay and a night spent in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitcalifornia.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">California<\/a> would quickly change all of those unsettling feelings. Everyone\u2019s positive attitudes throughout our traveling revealed that we were going to be a great group.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Bondi-Beach-Day-.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4772\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Bondi-Beach-Day--300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Bondi Beach Day!\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Bondi-Beach-Day--300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Bondi-Beach-Day-.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Our trip was centered around gaining a perspective of the diversity of health in a foreign country. Most of us failed to realize, however, the diversity right there in front of us. After discussing our opinions at the end of the day at the beautiful <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pichirichipark.com.au\/\">Pichi Richi Park<\/a>, I got to hear from students who, before this trip, had never flown in an airplane, had never been out of the country, and even students who had never taken public transportation. \u00a0This exposure to people from all different walks of life definitely made me appreciate the <a href=\"https:\/\/oiir.illinois.edu\/about\/demographics\">diversity<\/a> among us and understand that everyone&#8217;s trip would have a unique significance to them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/AUIP-Dinner-1.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-2\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4774\" src=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/AUIP-Dinner-1-204x300.jpg\" alt=\"AUIP Dinner\" width=\"204\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/AUIP-Dinner-1-204x300.jpg 204w, https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/AUIP-Dinner-1.jpg 539w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 204px) 100vw, 204px\" \/><\/a>Venturing out with our groups during our free time and then reconvening at night to talk about our days provided us with a glance into everyone\u2019s personalities and interests and even ideas of activities to do the next day. From learning how to navigate through cities, to cooking kangaroo (actually pretty tasty!), and even boosting each others&#8217; morale during seven-mile hikes, I couldn\u2019t have asked for a better group of people to experience this beautiful place with.<\/p>\n<p>If you keep an open mind, you will not only experience a new country, but get to meet great people to experience it with you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katerina Alemis, the Illinois Abroad marketing intern, writes: The saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not where you are, it\u2019s who you\u2019re with,\u201d is one that truly resonated with me throughout my time in Australia. After eight weeks of class together, I still felt overwhelmed by the fact that I was going to travel halfway across the world with a group of people whose&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,5,149,17,25,34],"tags":[150,98,121,120,48,61,131],"class_list":["post-4769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-interns","category-australia","category-australia-south-australia","category-australia-sydney","category-snapshot","category-student-perspective","tag-adelaide","tag-australia","tag-diversity","tag-health","tag-study-abroad","tag-sydney","tag-university-of-illinois"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4769"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4776,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4769\/revisions\/4776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}