Katarina Edlund is a Study Abroad student from Jönköping in Sweden.  She decided to study Occupational Therapy tohelp other people live their life to their fullest.

“I like to help people, but I didn’t want to be a nurse. I want to work with people so they live a good life and are happy at work, even if they experience some health issues along the way.”

When deciding on where to take her Study Abroad program, Katarina settled on JCU for the warm climate, city size and the opportunity to further her language skills.

“I wanted to go somewhere that was warm, and I wanted to improve my English. I found JCU and Australia to be a great place to go, and after some research I decided that I wanted to complete part of my education here.”

“I like that it’s a big city but not huge. You can go everywhere easily – I like to go to the Strand on weekends. I also like that the campus is close to everything. It’s a great city to be educated in.”

Katarina has found the teachers and support services at JCUto be very helpful.

“It’s easy to have contact with the professors and get involved with my classmates. They are very polite and if I don’t understand something I can just ask for help. If I need to know anything I can email or call them – they always take the time for you.”

“The best part of my time at JCU so far has been O-Week. We had these ‘Welcome Sessions’ and the mentors were great. They showed us around the campus, and it was easy to get close to the other new international students. We were all in the same situation, so it makes it much easier to come and start life here.”

Katarina will return to Sweden after her semester at JCU.She plans on finishing her Occupational Therapy degree and working as a therapist in a school environment.

“It’s great to see a new side of work that you’ll be practicing later. You learn so much about new people and other cultures and languages through this program. Don’t be too afraid of the language barrier –take the opportunity to learn because you’ll never regret it!”