Before leaving for Australia last year, I wrote this on my Tistory blog.
Before I went, I had set three goals in total, but did I actually achieve these goals over the course of about a year?
1. Go to meetups and improve your English by hanging out with different friends.
This part seems half-accomplished and half-unaccomplished. Because I went to meetups and met a lot of friends and hung out with them, but I don’t think I improved my English..!
I didn’t improve my existing English skills, but I think I maintained my current status. My English skills were quite good for Koreans even before I came to Australia. This is because I went on an exchange program six months ago and my English improved significantly. Since I knew English to some extent from the beginning, there were some areas where I couldn’t improve it more, but since I went to Australia for an ‘overseas internship’, the company was a foreign company, but I didn’t do much work, so I didn’t have as many opportunities to use English as I had expected. In addition, I lived in a share house with a Korean friend who went with me. The company I later moved to was also a Korean company, and my boyfriend was a Korean who spoke Korean well, so I regrettably didn’t improve my English skills much. However, it is true that I was able to grab good opportunities compared to other working holiday makers in Australia just because I ‘can speak English’. Therefore, I won’t regret it too much, and I will continue to study on my own after returning to Korea, especially trying to improve my English listening skills. I think I have maintained my English skills to the point where I can do interviews in English…
Playing beach volleyball at Manly Beach, buying volleyballs myself and gathering friends of friends to play volleyball with 10 people. It was meaningful because I was the host and played beach volleyball for the first time. I think I achieved my goal of meeting various friends and hanging out at the meetup. In fact, 10 months was a very long time… (in my experience) I can divide my 10 months in Australia into before and after I met my boyfriend. Before I met my boyfriend, my intern colleagues said I was a ‘meetup maniac’ because I went to meetups at least once a week. I am the type of person who gets strength from meeting people (but I don’t know these days.. I think I am becoming an introvert again after spending more than 6 months with my extremely introverted boyfriend..) There are meetup reviews on my Naver blog, and they are getting quite a lot of views. It is a post where I write reviews of meetups I have been to, and it seems to be especially popular with working holiday makers. One day, I met a Korean person at a friends gathering, and he seemed to know me..!! I felt like I was a celebrity (lol)
Playing Badminton in Sydney I used to play badminton with my Sydney best friend Chris. There was a time when we would get together and play at least once a week. I like badminton so much that I was the head of a badminton club in Korea. It was a great experience to play badminton, which I love, with foreign friends. In the end, I joined the Western Sydney University badminton club. If I ever come back to Australia with my boyfriend, I think I will go to a badminton club regularly.
2. Gain job experience
It was also a meaningful time in that I was able to experience the ‘Sales Marketing’ position.
There are three places in Sydney where I have worked in the positions I have seen.
(1) IH Sydney, marketing and sales intern
My first job was at a language school called IH Sydney, located in Sydney. They had four campuses in total in Sydney, and I worked at the Town Hall campus.
Because it was a new office, the facilities were good and the location was convenient as it was right in front of Town Hall Station.
On my last day as an intern with a multi-national sales and marketing team!
I think it was meaningful just to have worked in a team without Koreans for three months.
I was able to use the experience I gained here well when applying for my next job.
It was nice to be able to experience local businesses. (Actually, all memories become embellished after they pass~~)
(2) Short-term contract position as Marketing Assistant at KOTRA Sydney Trade Center
After my internship contract expired, IH asked me to work more in a casual position, but I chose to work at the Cortri Sydney Trade Center, located right next door.
As I wrote in my previous brunch post, I was going through a somewhat difficult(?) job search to stay in Sydney a little longer, such as as a piano teacher, and during that process, I found this posting that was just right for my situation.
Although my only work experience was as an intern, I was able to highlight my work as a startup team member during the interview, and thanks to that, I was able to work at KOTRA Sydney Trade Center.
A picture taken on the wall on the last day! The manager who took the picture was the best..!
A working holiday visa only allows you to work for a company for a maximum of 6 months, but this place was looking for someone to fill a 4-month position (I think it was probably a position targeting temporary visa holders, such as working holiday visa or student visa holders, or young workers).
In addition, it was the marketing and sales position that I wanted, and I had an acquaintance who had interned at the trade office I had visited before, and he had told me that the work there was very informative.
So I really desperately wanted to get hired! Thankfully, I got hired and finished my work.
I had the opportunity to attend the exhibition site. I was given much greater responsibility than I had during my previous internship. So it was a valuable time where I was able to work on more tasks in depth.
The stories of the people I met here were also very inspiring to me, and I think they will have a great influence on deciding my next steps and the direction of my life.
(3) Korean company located in Sydney, marketing sales position
After working at the trade office, I started looking for a job because I wanted to be with my boyfriend in Australia a little longer.
Since my visa expiration date was not far away, job hunting was not easy.
I also went through a pretty tough job search because I wanted to gain some work experience that would be of some help to me in my career.
Because of my visa conditions, job hunting was really, really difficult and I was very depressed at the time, but after keeping my mentality strong and trying to find a job, I started working in a marketing sales position at a Korean company.
It was nice to be able to work with programs used in sales activities such as BizLink and Zero.
Since it was a small business, the system wasn’t well organized, and I was the youngest, and it was a Korean business.
There were some areas where I felt I was being treated unfairly, so I quit after working for about 6 weeks, but still
I was able to learn small sales techniques. And even the mindset of a self-employed person. This is because the boss was a very strict person.
I suffered a lot during the process of quitting, but looking back, it was a meaningful experience.
In addition, my third job changed from full-time to part-time, so I ended up working another weekend job at the golf course reception.
It was a fun experience, taking pictures of Insta Reels and serving customers (and the pay was good because I worked on weekends).
The golf course I worked at also had a zone for children like this.
In fact, it’s a shame that I haven’t been able to work at a cafe, which is what most people do when they come to Australia on a working holiday visa.
I also tried it in the end, but I have no experience in this field and I didn’t have the opportunity for various reasons, so I couldn’t try it.
If I ever come back to Australia again, I would love to try working as a barista!
I came to Sydney and started liking coffee, and also found out about baristas’ hourly wages.. haha
The final summary of my life in Australia will continue in the next episode!
2024-07-11 13:14:49
#months #living #Australia #total
