experience victoria

Monique Vecchie

Year 10

During October of this year, 6 year 10 BSC students attended the ‘Experience Victoria’ Program with 6 international year 10 students from our school. The purpose of this program was for both local and international students to learn more about Melbourne and Australian History, make new friends and understand the English language to a further extent than the classrooms. Multiple other public and private secondary schools were also involved in this program.  

Our first excursion was to the Dandenong Ranges. The trip involved a lot of sightseeing of Dandenong’s forest areas and feeding the cockatoos . After having a ball with the cockatoos, we headed on the bus to a fruit farm nearby. We rode in carts to have a quick tour of the farm - over 400 fruits are grown there.  We even got to taste fresh grapefruit and blood oranges. Who knew grapefruit was so sour! 

With time flying quickly, we headed on to Monash University in Clayton, where we heard from a speaker about the subjects and pathways offered at Monash. We got lost touring the massive campus!  We also found out that Monash is ranked one of the world’s best universities for  science courses.   

The following excursion occurred two weeks later. We all went to the Melbourne Museum, where we collaborated with our international friends and learned about Australian history. We were able to express our thoughts on multiculturism with multiple researchers of this field and understand what this ‘idea’ means in further depth. We listened to a significant Aboriginal elder, Big Al, who was a very amusing speaker.  He taught us about his Aboriginal culture - even playing the didgeridoo for us. He reminded us that there are over 324 Aboriginal tribes in Australia! After Big Al left, the museum staff served us lunch with an ample variety of food: miniature burgers, sandwiches, spring rolls, breads, desserts and much more. We visited the Wurundjeri areas of the Melbourne Museum and helpful guides explained exhibits throughout the tour.  

Overall, Experience Victoria was a great program for students to collaborate with the international students of their school and make new friends from other schools. We learned about Australian History and the Dandenong Ranges to a higher level than we could have if restricted to the classroom. I recommend anyone interested  to take up this great opportunity if it comes past again, as you will learn many things and make new friends along the way!