Faces in the crowd: Sophomore Polly Fitzgerald

Sophomore experiences two similar yet different countries

By Michal Ruprecht, Assistant Editor|November 29, 2016

Photo credit: All photos courtesy of Polly Fitzgerald

Polly Fitzgerald poses outside her grandparent’s house in Melbourne, Australia. “When I went over there this summer it’s supposed to be Australia’s winter and it was probably 60 degrees at the coldest, which is perfect,” Fitzgerald said.

Miles of beaches line the coast and sail boats skitter up and down the sea shore.

Sounds a lot like a Michigan, right? Maybe, but this place is 10,000 miles away and where sophomore Polly Fitzgerald was born: Melbourne, Australia.

“It’s happy. It’s friendly. It’s warm,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s mostly just really big and friendly. There’s lots of places you can go to eat and everyone’s really friendly.”

Although Michigan and Australia share similar geographic landscapes, Fitzgerald finds them to be more different than similar, especially when it comes to the beaches.

“They’re not like Australia,” she said. “There’s fish and chip shops and everything, and there’s people surfing, the water’s warm, there’s hundreds of people, and then Michigan is just a lake with some rocky sand.”

Because she experienced a change in environment through moving, she noticed a difference in how people act.

“It’s not like they’re unfriendly in Michigan,” Fitzgerald said. “(But) I see strangers talking to other strangers more often in Australia than you do here. … Everyone feels close even if they don’t know each other in Australia compared to Michigan where it’s not much like that.”

A view overlooking the Melbourne coast.
Since Fitzgerald and her family had to leave behind friends and family in both Portland and Melbourne, Fitzgerald said she had to acclimate to a new way of life. Her family also had the same problem, but it helped them become more conversational and comfortable in different environments.
A sunrise at Noosa National Park in Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia.
A sunrise at Noosa National Park in Noosa Heads, Queensland, Australia. “In Australia … there’s fish and chip shops and everything and there’s people surfing, the water’s warm, there’s hundreds of people and then Michigan is just like a lake with some rocky sand,” Polly Fitzgerald said.

“I used to be really really shy,” Fitzgerald said. “It helped me get away from that because I was forced to kind of make new friends and adapt to the new lifestyle and stuff so I got out of my comfort zone.”

Fitzgerald said the move opened many opportunities for both herself and her family. She said she wants to apply to both Australian and American colleges, but isn’t sure if she’d like to stay here.

“(There’s) better education here, so I think that provided me with more opportunities for sure,” she said. “I’ll definitely be going to a better college, getting better educated than I would have if I stayed.”