Australian Capital Territory - Nation's capital

As a reasonably small city by comparison with Sydney and Melbourne, Canberra has a very high student population, which combined with its high focus on government, politics, and diplomacy makes it a top choice for most people – especially people focussing on higher studies.

As a high school graduate, fresh out of school and looking for trouble in your first few years at uni, you may be looking in the wrong place. Of course when ever you put a few thousand students together there are going to be some pretty wild nights out and some mischief to be had over the weekend, but as a city you might find the night life a bit lacking and the weekends a bit long.

Still, lots of people love it and more than a few are willing to stand up and defend Canberra and the ACT.

Bloody hot, bloody cold.
As an inland city a few hundred metres above sea level, when you visit Canberra you can pack both your summer and winter clothes if you’re planning on staying any length of time. Super dry and hot winds in the summer, combined with the infamous inland droughts of inland Australia are contrasted against the extremely cold winter nights where everything is covered in frost and ice till mid morning. As far as variety of weather – Canberra has it all.

Facts about the ACT
People who studied in Canberra often relate how rare it is to meet a person who was born and bred in Canberra. It just doesn’t seem to happen. Everyone is from somewhere else and they are in the city with a set objective, assignment, or a degree to get and then are on their way off to somewhere else.

Living in Canberra itself is pretty easy, especially if you are one of the thousands of people who live in a residential college. You’re whole life can just about be lived on campus and there may be little reason to leave. Perhaps this clouds a lot of international students views of Canberra, who arrive and take a quick tour, settle in to their college, find the nearest mall, the computer lab and their lecture hall and then graduate 12 to 18 months later with a pretty low opinion of the place.

Public transport is not really necessary if you are sticking to the main routes and into Civic and so on, but if you want to live a little bit out of the way and then go somewhere on the weekends without having to wait around a few hours for buses, then you really are going to have to get a car.

The best thing about being a student in Canberra is that more often or not you are not going to have to look to far to find the things you need to do your coursework, assignments or thesis. With all the libraries and embassies and government departments you can usually get an answer with out too much trouble.

About Canberra
The thing you need to remember about Canberra is that not even 100 years ago the government sat down and decided to build a city there. There was a plan. There was a structure and everything is usually where it is for a reason. It is a planned city.

With the town centres spread around the city, and each centre having almost all the facilities most people need to survive – malls, service stations, restaurants, bars – if you do leave campus you’re probably not going to be going much further than your town centre or Civic if you really want to get out and about.

With lots of organisations for sports as well, you can also find some sort of association for what ever your hobby or sport might be. There are lots of ways to fill the hours with things other than study.

Top 5 attractions in the ACT
1. The old and new parliament houses. Always worth a visit, you never know who you might see.
2. Telstra tower – a great view and a good place for a photo
3. The War Memorial – especially for Australian students, but then maybe even more so for international students
4. The museum
5. The national gallery.

What should you be drinking in the ACT?
It’s going to be a pint of New. Probably. You can get most beers in the ACT, especially VB from Victoria.