No Worries, Mate: Putting Work in Perspective
By Rebecca Diane Levit
This article appeared in Abroad View spring 2004
Wollongong is half a world away from my hometown of Washington, D.C. After winning a Fulbright fellowship to study the biochemistry of aging at the University of Wollongong in this coastal Australian city, I had only a vague idea of this distance and an even fuzzier comprehension of the city’s pronunciation. 
Wollongong retains its Aboriginal name, meaning “between the mountains and the sea,” which describes its geographic location precisely.
After my first glance at the supermarket shelf in Wollongong, I thought living in Australia would require little cultural adjustment. Everything from toothpaste brands to types of food was similar to those at home, and I could even follow the sagas of ER, Survivor and The Bachelor. So it took me a while to realize that the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach, as well as my tendency to pay $3 more to buy Heinz Ketchup rather than Dick Smith tomato sauce, was a result of homesickness.
“Hey, Beck,” my Aussie friend asked, “Do you want to go to Unibar this arvo and get pissed?” I had no idea what he was talking about. My friend was really asking if I wanted to go to the bar at the University that afternoon and have a beer. I sometimes find Australians hard to understand because of their use of nicknames and their removal of superfluous syllables in everyday speech. These verbal shortcuts are often amusing—my personal favorite being “oldies” as a synonym for parents—and they demonstrate the casual nature of Australian interpersonal relations.
But the differences between the American and Australian psyche go beyond word length. When I first arrived at the biology lab at the University of Wollongong, I had a list of goals for the year. My plan was to look at the physiology and biochemistry of aging using several bird, marsupial and rodent species. I had an exact number of journal articles I wanted to publish, a list of species to investigate and a preliminary title for my master’s thesis. Three months into the project, I had exactly one page filled in my lab book, non-functioning equipment and no data. As I threw my to-do list out the window, my Australian thesis advisor said, “Don’t worry, we are getting there. Just take each problem one at a time, and it will all work itself out.”
I was accustomed to a results-driven research environment and am still surprised that a world-renowned biochemical researcher has such a relaxed attitude. In Australia, hard work is essential, but it is kept in perspective. Enjoyment of life is just as important as productivity. Being a team player, a mate and one of the group is more important than being all alone at the top. As a biologist, I am used to spending long hours in the lab and have been told by both Australians and Americans that I work too hard. The Americans mean it in admiration or as a pat on the back, encouraging me to keep up the good work. The Australians mean it as a criticism of my misplaced priorities. Once I leave Australia, I will be going home to start medical school and to enter one of the most competitive and stressful environments in the American education system. Ironically, living in Wollongong has been the best preparation for this next step, because it has taught me to put things in perspective and to balance my career with the other parts of my life. From my vantage point between the mountains and the sea, I have learned both to appreciate the uniqueness of the Australian values and mentality and to understand how they differ from those held by Americans.
This bio was accurate at the time this article was printed:
Rebecca Diane Levit graduated with a Biology degree from Dickinson College in 2002. She then went to Australia on a Fulbright fellowship and is now back in the U.S. as a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania.