{"id":675,"date":"2017-11-17T19:13:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T19:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/?p=675"},"modified":"2017-11-17T19:13:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-17T19:13:21","slug":"the-journey-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/the-journey-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"The graduate (and international) student\u2019s journey begins…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hello everyone! My name is Juliana and I\u2019m super happy and excited to start writing for you this semester, and tell you a little bit about my experience as a graduate student here at Memorial. I\u2019m originally from Brazil, and when I got accepted to start my studies I read a lot of posts on the Memorial Graduate Student Blog, to try to get the feeling of what it was like to study and live here in Newfoundland. I hope I can pass along this feeling to you, and maybe help you if you\u2019re struggling with some decision in your life.<\/p>\n

To begin, I\u2019m going to start telling you about why I decided to come to this beautiful city that is St. John\u2019s. I\u2019ve always wanted to do something different with my life, and basically, I spent my 26 years living with my parents and doing completely normal things. You may think that studying Chemistry is not normal at all, but I used to wake up every day, meet the same people, do exactly the same thing and go back home – I had never traveled really far from my city. With that in mind, right after I finished my master\u2019s degree, I decided to go to Japan with my husband. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t understand one single word and I got lost a couple of times, but it was one of the best things I\u2019ve ever done. Being able to (or try to) communicate with other people within different cultures, with different energies and ways of thinking, taught me something I had never learned before. I really wanted to do my PhD and grow as a chemist (I love research and all the problems and successes that come with it), but I also wanted to grow as a person. That\u2019s why I decided to apply to Memorial University, hug my family and friends in Brazil goodbye, and travel 17 hours to come here!<\/p>\n

Getting here was crazy and I felt alone and lost at times, but with the help of my new friends, the people of Newfoundland (which are so kind, happy and helpful), Memorial (which offers all of the support with every issue or problem you may have), my lovely dog, my lovely husband and my lovely supervisor (and superwoman), this transition went smoothly. Yes, the weather is very different (had my first contact with snow a few weeks ago), the language is not my first, and I felt like a zombie in the first two week of classes, but that\u2019s nothing compared to this wonderful experience. In three months, I feel like a completely different person and I\u2019m very thankful! Don\u2019t ever be afraid to make changes, and if these changes are related to Memorial University and St. John\u2019s, just know you\u2019ll have all the love and support you need (and also beautiful sights! And whales!).<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading! See you!<\/p>\n

~Juliana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello everyone! My name is Juliana and I\u2019m super happy and excited to start writing for you this semester, and tell you a little bit about my experience as a graduate student here at Memorial. I\u2019m originally from Brazil, and when I got accepted to start my studies I read a lot of posts on … [Read more…]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":138,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-juliana-vidal","4":"post-675","6":"format-standard","7":"category-student-blog"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":679,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.mun.ca\/studentblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}