All about the packing list, the culture shock, the small things nobody warns you about.
Special blog written by: Ananya Sawarkar

The offer letter arrives on a Tuesday. You read it three times before it feels real. Then you read it a fourth time, just to be sure. Then you screenshot it and send it to your mum, who immediately calls you, even though she could have just replied to the message.

Within days, the tabs multiply. Flights. Visa requirements. ‘What to pack for Perth.’ Student accommodation reviews. City guides you’ll skim but not really absorb because none of it feels tangible yet. You tell yourself you’re fine. You’re excited. You’re ready.

And then moving day arrives, and you’re standing in an airport with two suitcases somehow filled to the brim with the last twenty years of your life — including, inexplicably, three sets of heavy winter clothes for a city where it is sunny roughly 300 days a year — and it hits you all at once: you are actually doing this.

Perth is about as far from everywhere as a city can be while still being a city. On the day you land, it will be sunny and warm and completely indifferent to the fact that you don’t know a single person here yet. The city will not pause for your arrival. It will just… be there, waiting for you to figure it out.

Moving to Perth for uni is one of the best decisions you’ll ever make. But here is what no one tells you before you do.

I’ve been exactly where you are, landing in a new country, dragging luggage that felt like it contained my entire personality, wondering if I’d made a spectacular mistake; and somehow reliving it later, as a Resident Advisor at Campus Perth, where I watched hundreds of new students walk through those same doors with the same wide eyes.

So here is everything I wish someone had told me before I showed up.

Before You Pack: The Honest Packing List

Here's a truth nobody will tell you: you will overpack. It is basically a law of physics. You will stare at your suitcase the night before and think 'but what if I need these black leather jeans?' and honey, if that thought crossed your mind, you clearly haven't watched Friends yet. Summers in Perth are Ross- in-leather-jeans levels of hot. You will buy things once you're here. Cotton On exists. Take a breath.

That said, here’s what you actually do need:

Bring:

• A good set of bedding, having your own familiar pillow and throw blanket, makes your room feel like yours faster than almost anything else. Especially after the inevitably long, soul-testing, "why is Perth so far from everything" flight you just survived.
• A power board with USB ports. You will never have enough power outlets. This is not a drill.
• Earplugs and a sleep mask. Shared accommodation is not quiet, especially the first few weeks when everyone is in that chaotic ‘let’s stay up until 2 am getting to know each other’ phase.
• Laundry bag and a mesh bag for delicates (if you prefer the ones from home).
• A first-aid kit: paracetamol, band-aids, antihistamines, and cold and flu tablets. Week three will bring the inevitable new-environment cold, and you will want these at 11 pm when you are not up for a pharmacy run.
• Something that makes the space feel like home, such as photos or decorations.

Leave Behind:

• Half your wardrobe. Perth is warm. You will not need the heavy jumpers until June, if at all, and even then, it’s a Perth winter.
• Appliances you’re hoping to sneak in, such as sandwich presses and rice cookers, in rooms are a fire hazard. The communal kitchen exists for a reason.
• Sentimental items you’d genuinely be devastated to lose. Leave the irreplaceable stuff safe at home.

The First Grocery Shop (A Survival Guide)

Nobody warned me about this. I walked into Woolworths on my second day in Perth with a list, a budget, and a confidence level that was, in retrospect, completely unearned.

Forty-five minutes later, I was standing in the dairy aisle, genuinely overwhelmed by the number of milk options, holding a basket that somehow contained chips, two types of pasta, no actual vegetables, and a box of Oreo cookies that cost four dollars. Four dollars. For one box of cookies!

It’s a whole thing. Here’s how to survive it:

• Don’t buy everything on day one. You will overbuy perishables, they will go off, and you will feel both wasteful and sad. Shop in smaller batches until you know your rhythm.
• Most grocery stores have an international aisle where you're sure to find some familiar snacks from home, because nothing cures a bout of homesickness quite like finding your favourite instant noodles in aisle seven.
• Download the Woolworths or Coles app. The weekly specials are real and they add up. You will figure out the grocery shop. It just takes a few rounds. Think of it as character development.

Arriving: What the First Week Actually Looks Like

Move-in day is controlled chaos. It’s a lot. Here’s how to make it smoother:

Introduce yourself to the Resident Advisors (RAs) on your first day. They’re fellow residents at Campus Perth, as well as part of the staff team, here to support you after hours whenever you need them. They are not there to monitor you; they are your first port of call for anything from “where can I get my first meal at 9 pm in Perth?” to ‘I’m really struggling, and I don’t know who to talk to.’ Knowing their name and face early genuinely matters (PS: they can help you score an extra serving of popcorn on movie nights if you are nice to them).

Go to the orientation events even if you’re exhausted and would rather be horizontal. The first week is the easiest time to meet people; everyone is equally lost, equally eager, equally pretending they’re fine. It gets harder to break into existing social circles as the weeks go on. Think of it like the pilot episode of your favourite TV show: everyone is new, everyone is figuring it out, and the shared spaces are where it all begins.

Give yourself permission to feel weird. Homesickness hits differently for everyone. For me, it arrived quietly in week two — right around the time the novelty wore off, and I realised this was just… my life now. That’s normal. Ride it out. Call home. Make a cup of chai if you can. It passes.

Living in Shared Spaces: The Stuff Nobody Says Out Loud

Okay, real talk. Shared accommodation is wonderful and also occasionally maddening, sometimes on the same day. Here are the things I learned the hard way so you don’t have to:

• Have the awkward conversation with your roommate early. Sleep schedules, guests, lights out, and cleaning. Five minutes of slightly uncomfortable honesty on day three saves weeks of festering resentment later.
• Label your food. I know it feels petty. Label it anyway. A labelled yoghurt is a yoghurt that survives the week.
• Clean up in shared spaces as you go, not ‘later.’ The passive aggression that builds around a shared kitchen sink is unlike anything you have ever experienced. Don’t be the dishes person.
• Noise and light in a shared room are negotiable, but only if you actually negotiate them. Most people are completely reasonable when you talk to them like a human being.
• You will not click with everyone on your floor. That is fine. You’re not auditioning for the same friend group; you’re coexisting. Respectful and civil is the bar, not best friends.
• Bonus Tip - Make a shared ‘getting ready’ playlist to help avoid fights over whose music is loud in the morning.

On Finding Your People

This was the part I was most quietly terrified about. Coming from India, landing somewhere where I genuinely knew no one, wondering if I’d just be eating alone in my room for two years like some kind of dramatic Gilmore Girls cold open.

Here’s what actually happened: the friendships that ended up meaning the most formed slowly, in the smallest moments. Over someone lending me their colander at midnight. Over a study session that became a F1 streaming night. Over a very bad first attempt at making pasta in the communal kitchen, which my floor still brings up.

Be patient with the process. Say yes more than you want to in the first month. And join something, a club, a society, a sport, literally anything. University is a much lonelier place if lectures are your only reason to show up.

A Note From My Time as an RA

The students I worried most about during my time as a Resident Advisor at Campus Perth weren’t the ones who came to me with problems. They were the ones who went quiet. Who stopped showing up to meals, didn’t respond to check-ins, and let small things compound into big ones in silence.

Please don’t do that. Your RA is not there to judge you or report you to someone, we’re there because we’ve genuinely been through it and we want to help. Knock on the door. Send the message. No issue is too small to mention.

And if it’s bigger than a casual chat can hold, your uni’s student services team can connect you with counselling, financial support, and academic help. Those resources exist for you. Please use them.

Welcome to this next chapter.