It Doesn't Matter Where You Are

Daniel Ralston dressed for the SRU international fashion show.

Daniel Ralston, 25, is a junior and exchange student from Melbourne, Australia studying Education at Slippery Rock University. He was influenced to go on exchange in America by what he’s heard from his friends back home that have taken classes at schools in the U.S. He decided to come to Slippery Rock because the school matched with his school in Melbourne under the list of partnering institutions and because the classes he needed were offered here at SRU.

The differences Ralston has faced between the classes he’s been taking here at SRU and the classes he’s taken back home revolve around when education majors do their field experience. “We tend to do a lot of that early on whereas my classmates here in America who are in their third year seemed to have not been teaching in schools as much,” Ralston stated. “I liked that we’ve gotten a lot of experience in the schools, in fact I think I learn a lot more when I’m student teaching than when I’m in a lecture class.” He believes in order to become a good teacher, you need to experience teaching in classes rather than learning all the theories.

Another difference Ralston finds interesting about America is the politics. He watches different TV shows about American politics along with the debates between candidates which he pointed out the difference between political campaigns here versus back home in Australia. He said the campaigning period here is a lot longer than back home, in which here in America they start campaigning a year before the elections.

Along with the political differences, he finds the culture differences interesting as well. “Each state’s kind of got its own flavor, which I quite like,” Ralston said. “You can kind of travel around without ever leaving the country.”

He also noticed that students in America tend to go straight into college after graduating from high school. In Australia, some students take gap years between ending high school and starting college because it gives them a break from going straight into four more years of school after being in school for twelve years. “It’s a common theme back home for when you finish your last year of high school before you start university, you maybe go work for a while, or travel overseas, get a bit of life experience before going straight into school again where you’ve just been for twelve years.”

Daniel and Jungkeon dressed for the International Fashion show at SRU.

Ralston was also part of SRU’s Internations club where he met his friend Jungkeon Jo, another exchange student from South Korea. Jo became interested in learning about Australian culture through Ralston and also noticed the different slang words Australians use. He also shared an interest in American politics just as Ralston did and found themselves discussing the differences in each other’s cultures just as much as the differences between theirs and American culture.

Out of all the exchange students in Internations club that come from different countries around the world, Jo and Ralston bonded due to similar interests in music and international politics. Jo noticed that he liked the same music groups that Ralston did such as The Rolling Stones and Radiohead. “We hang out and listen to music every day,” Jo said. “We’ll talk about American politics or current international issues.”

Not only did they have plenty in common, but Jo was happy he became friends with Ralston and hopes to keep in contact with him after they leave back to their hometowns. “Thanks to him, I can understand Australian culture, which was hard for me and I want to keep in touch with him.”

But what’s fascinating about Ralston is the path he decided to take after finishing high school. He did go straight into University after high school and focused on civil engineering. Even though he decided to study civil engineering, he knew he could switch out of it later if he didn’t want to continue with it, which was another difference he noticed between colleges in America and Australia. In America, freshman tend to take general classes in different subjects such as science and English and math whereas in Australia, freshman can focus mainly on their field of study rather than a number of general courses.

After deciding not to continue with civil engineering, Ralston took an “army gap year” in which they take a few people to go into the Australian defense force in a one year contract. He got drafted into the artillery to do basic training and was in a unit in Northern Australia for around four months and realized the military wasn’t for him.

When he finished up his one year contract with the army, he still didn’t want to go back to school, specifically civil engineering, and ended up extending the gap year and traveled to the United Kingdom. After traveling and working around the UK for a year and a half, he went back to Australia and knew he wanted to do teaching and applied as soon as he could.

The map below provides some of the different places Ralston has traveled to during his lifetime. Each point on the map has a video attached in which he shares a story about how he became interested in traveling, his experience being in the Army and what he's found interesting about going to school here in Slippery Rock.

Three years later, he ended up in America through an exchange program due to the need to keep traveling. He plans on teaching math and science once he’s finished with school in Australia. His favorite year to teach is grade seven which is the starting year for high school because they don’t have middle school in Australia. Once he becomes a qualified teacher, he wants to teach overseas because traveling is something he really enjoys doing as well.

Though his experience here at Slippery Rock University wasn’t what he was expecting it to be due to what he’s seen in the movies, he did enjoy meeting all the different students from America and international countries as well. “I wasn’t too worried about where specifically I came in America because it’s not so much about where you are, the people you meet is what makes it,” Ralston said. “If you meet cool people, you have a good time, no matter where you are.”