A leap of faith: Tejas' lessons after his Hiroshima exchange journey

"In those two weeks, we did everything together. You make really close friendships, even though it's for a short period of time."

Published on the 03 November 2026

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A group photo of UNSW students on exchange in Hiroshima

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Scratching the travelling itch via Future Leader Lab

We can all agree that Australia is a great place to live, but we all get bitten by the travelling bug at some point. Some people go to Vanuatu to help out with solar cells, while others head to China to keep improving their Chinese skills.

As it so often happens with UNSW students, an exchange program is generally the best route for those who want to scratch the travel itch while getting some university credits at the same time.

For Tejas Sriram Narayanan, a third-year Mechatronics Engineering student, the Sustainability and Innovation Lab (CDEV3500) course swayed his attention after his original choice didn't pan out.

"I just wanted to go abroad for a few weeks! My first choice was the [Global Practice of Work] CDEV3300, which was a partner project with an overseas company that would be useful for my workplace, so I wasn't initially planning on going abroad for the Future Leader Lab," admits Tejas.

"But I decided to go along with it anyway because why not? And it turned out to be very rewarding!"

For those who are unaware, the Sustainability and Innovation Lab is a two-week course where students use innovation, entrepreneurship and problem-solving skills to address sustainable development challenges. The course is typically run in partnership with Hiroshima University and students will have the opportunity to collaborate with Hiroshima University students over in Japan.

To sum up, it's six UOC and a two-week trip to Hiroshima for uni work. That's a win-win. Of course, it's not just all fun as Tejas says the course was intense but rewarding.

"We learned how to pitch, present and come up with ideas. I thought [CDEV3300] ended up being useful for my communication skills.

"I learned about what it takes to be in a startup and rapidly come up with ideas in like a team of people from different countries, so it was useful in a different way because I was expecting it to be like a workplace."

"The first week we had to come up with a problem statement, do some research and find where there are gaps in the market for this," he recalls. "It can be anything, but it has to be related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We ended up choosing a transport-related problem, then we defined the problem statement.

"That was the hardest part, because although there was the problem itself, we can't have the solution inside the problem. It's really complicated [laughs] but once we [finalised] the problem statement, the second week we had to form a solution for it and essentially pitch to investors. We had the whole professor team from multiple countries and we just pitched it to them. They gave us final feedback and that was pretty much it."

An unforgettable time in Hiroshima

Two things about the course stood out for Tejas. Firstly, he found the balance between individual work and collaboration in solving the aforementioned problem statement invigorating in developing his communication and teamwork skills.

"We all had our own individual ideas and problems. Each group had different problems they were tackling," explains Tejas. "But the whole process of developing the idea and releasing it was really quick. One of the ways this was more interesting was because there were people from other unis in each group. It wasn't just UNSW.

"Even though we have international students at UNSW, communicating with students from an overseas uni felt different. That was one of the most interesting parts and we all had to learn how to communicate with each other."

"Every day [in Hiroshima] I had to push myself and take a leap of faith. I'm sure I could have ordered [stuff] on Amazon, but I didn't want to take the risk of having it arrive too late.

"So every day I felt that I had to do something different and just go out of my comfort zone."

The second thing that stood out for Tejas was, of course, Hiroshima itself. The Japan trip was his first time going to an overseas country that wasn't Australia or India, which is where his family lives, and so there was some understandable culture shock during his first few days in the Land of the Rising Sun.

"When I got there, I had to figure out which bus to take [because] there was one specific bus that left once a day from the airport to our hotel," laughs Tejas.

"Then I had to figure out how to get a transport card and [get used] to everything being paid in cash. You have to really be on top of your ATMs!"

And the language barrier? Oh yeah, there was plenty of that, plus many unknown nooks and crannies.

"I had to buy an adapter one day and the nearest store was a 30-minute walk away, so it was really strange trying to navigate these random streets to a random electronics store. Nobody spoke English either, so I had to use my high school Japanese. Since I'm a vegetarian, it's a bit hard to get food in Japan. I had to really practise my Japanese and tell [people] I can't have certain ingredients, as well as go out of my way to find restaurants."

While it all sounds like it was a challenging first few days for Tejas, he quickly adapted and was soon relishing the change in scenery, literally and figuratively.

"Although I was challenged in many aspects, there was one moment where we were sitting on the top of our hotel after going to the onsen with two of our new friends. We were like, 'You know, just a few weeks ago, we didn't really know each other, but now we're just chilling in Japan, getting six UOC on top of the hotel balcony. That's when it really hit me.

"When I came back home, I realised that I had so many friends from abroad. In those two weeks, we did everything together. You make really close friendships, even though it's for a short period of time."

The post-travel hangover and the life lessons learned

Needless to say, the two weeks spent in Hiroshima meeting new people and doing incredible CDEV3500 work left a massive impression on Tejas. When he returned back home to Australia, he recalled feeling a sense of mundanity. An almost reverse culture shock, if you will.

"I thought I would feel sad but would get over it, but it felt like after the two weeks where I was doing all this growth and having all this fun, I just came back straight away to a boring [and] mundane daily routine."

The impact of going back to his normal routine surprised Tejas, but it also helped him realise that he's capable of doing much more than he expected of himself. So, he decided to be proactive and take another leap of faith.

"It hit me harder than I thought it would. That told me I want to be out there and growing every day," he reflects. "I don't just want to stay in my daily routine, although it's comfortable. I want to take more of these experiences in the future.

"So I ended up applying for like a long-term exchange in a different country. I feel like that [Japan] experience told me that I can live alone.""

With Japan ticked off, where's the destination this time around?

"I'm going to Europe in a few weeks for that. That's a long-term exchange, so we'll see how it goes! [laughs]."

"All the anxieties that stopped me from doing things at home, it wasn't there when I was [in Japan]. I could fully reinvent myself.

"When I got home, I felt like it's the environment that pushes you into thinking a certain way. So I just felt like I was going back to my old mindsets [back home]."

The future and sharing pearls of wisdom

Beyond having Europe locked in and getting the itch to travel more, Tejas realised that trying something new and outside of his comfort zone led to him enjoying his life more in Australia.

"I joined a different mentoring program, helping out international students and just trying new things, and that's the lifestyle change that I've made since Japan," says Tejas. [The Japan trip] told me that I can handle trying new things, and even if I fail, it's okay."

Given the journey he's been on in such a short amount of time, the transformation is remarkable to say the least. For those who may be unsure of what to do or whether or not they should take the chance on an opportunity, Tejas has one simple piece of advice: do it.

"Take the leap of faith with everything you do. I just took a leap of faith with a lot of things, like going to the electronics store and the vegetarian places to eat, and it turned out that people are much more welcoming than I initially thought. Taking a leap of faith really helped me grow because I felt like there were big problems. But then once I took that step, the problems weren't actually that big."

As for those thinking about doing an exchange program or a course like CDEV3500, Tejas is all for it, even if it doesn't seem like a fit for whatever it is you're studying.

"Definitely have a go! Even if it's not related to your technical capability, it will definitely help you grow in other ways. They look for that international experience, the adaptability and the communication.

"You can challenge yourself more or challenge yourself less if you want. It's whatever you make of the experience."