HELP scared teen 16 moving to melbourne

[chantelle]

Hi I'm supposed to be moving to Melboune at the end of this year. I've never been to Australia before and I'm currently in the UK and I'm not looking forward to leaving my friends and family behind and the whole idea of it just scares me even though i am excited at the same time. Obviously I'm upset that I have to move at this time because I've just left secondary school and am supposed to be attending college in September with my friends so I'm sad to be missing out on that. It would be great if there's people my age who are going through/been through a similar thing and could give me some advice ? Also, it would be great if someone could tell me about melbourne and if it's actually any good? I'm really into art and I've heard melbourne is good for that? Thanks

Edited October 13, 2014 by chantelle

[Lisa Anne Pope]

I moved to Melbourne when I was 17. My advice to you would be to go back to school and do Years 11 and 12. I went straight to a job and found it really difficult to make friends - didn't meet anyone my age at all and ended up going home when I was 19. If you go to school you will meet people your age. My sister was 16 and had already left school and was starting college doing hairdressing but she went back to school in Melbourne and she met friends that way.

[Chortlepuss]

We moved over when my daughter was 12. She was scared and miserable at first, (we were all scared!) but now has a great circle of friends, and is just completing university here. I have only visited Melbourne, but of all the places in Oz it is seen as the best for art/culture. Hopefully someone your own age will be along soon to advise but it is early in the morning here then heading to school.

[Quoll]

Is there any chance your parents would let you finish A levels? (Stay with rels, board with friends?) The reason being that A levels travel well to Aus unis and you need relatively lower scores for similar degrees and at the same time you keep your options open for a UK uni if that is what you prefer (you'd struggle to get back into a UK Uni with Aus yr 12 scores and have to pay international fees into the bargain).

 

If your parents aren't prepared to consider that as an option then you really will have to do yrs 11 and 12 starting in Jan 2015. You can't even sweep the streets without yr12 these days and schools are the best places to do yr 11/12. You can do the course at TAFE (if you are temporary residents it will cost your parents international fees to do that though and the cohort of students is not usually one focussing on high achievement). All depending on when you arrive, you could go into yr 10 for the remainder of this year then choose your 11/12 subjects, at the moment, schools are still free even for temp residents whereas fees kick in for TAFE.

 

Melbourne is ok - all depends on where you're coming from so it's hard to compare - it's suburbs stretch for miles! There will be plenty going on and at 16/17 you should be able to fit into a friendship group (it's the 14/15 yr old girls that have a bit of a closed shop control of friendships, they've grown up by 16 LOL). It'll be an adventure!

[Fleur3434]

Hi Chantelle.... Don't be scared, my guess is you are going to love Melbourne! We moved from the UK to Sydney two years ago with our 15 year old (he has just turned 17) and although Rob is temporarily back in the UK to finish his GCSE's (as unfortunately we weren't overly impressed with the education system here), he can't wait to come back next June. He will then be in a similar position to yourself but rest assured that there are lots of options. As Quoll mentioned in his message you can choose to 're'-do year 11 and 12 either in a mainstream college or at TAFE or if you have an idea about what you would like to do career wise, TAFE offers 100's of courses which, great on their own, can actually also be used as a spring board to university.

Now onto Melbourne! Melbourne is an amazing city (we love it so much that we are moving from Sydney to Melbourne in January 2015!), especially if you're into your art and music. The 'street art' in Melbourne alone is fantastic. There are so many events and festivals on throughout the year that I don't even know where to start. And there is plenty of fun stuff to do for teenagers. Check out the IceHouse in the Docklands (they do a Friday night Top 40 and a Saturday night Glow Party which is very popular amongst teenagers), there is a great 'bean bag' cinema in the city, Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre in Albert Park has got a 'Flow Rider' which is great fun, there is Federation Square which is a popular 'hang-out', there is St Kilda for the beach and Luna Park, Fitzroy is great for it's vintage shopping and so on....

Now.... meeting people your age can be done in many ways. School and / or TAFE would be the obvious suggestion but if you want to be pro-active I would suggest you set up a 'Melbourne Teens' group on meetup.com (16 - 20 would probably be the perfect age group as the younger ones will easily make new friends through school and the older ones have lots and lots of other groups to choose from). It will give you the opportunity to make friends across all nationalities and you can arrange get-togethers and fun events. It is very easy to set up and I think lots of teens in a similar position to yourself would benefit from it....

 

Good luck Chantelle and feel free to message me if you have any further questions.

 

Best Wishes, Fleur