2023: Ruby McCann-Hay
Milan-Melbourne Travel Scholarship recipient Ruby McCann-Hay spent the final semester of her Bachelor of Design (Communication Design) studying at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) in Milan.
Ruby, from Byron Bay in NSW, moved to Melbourne to study at RMIT in 2020 – just in time for the COVID-19 lockdowns. She stayed in Melbourne and spent most of the first two years of her degree studying online.
In 2023 Ruby decided she wanted to spend some time abroad and was accepted to study at NABA for the final semester of her degree.
“After being back on campus for a while, it felt like Melbourne was alive again and I was starting to make friends, but I had applied for the exchange to Milan and I still really wanted to go,” she says.
Ruby wasn’t aware of the Milan-Melbourne Travel Scholarship until an RMIT staff member suggested she apply. She says it was a pleasant surprise to learn she’d been awarded the funding.
“I’d been saving money for my semester in Milan but I knew finances would be tight. The scholarship meant I could relax while I was studying and have money to travel a bit in Europe when it was over.”
Ruby says she had travelled before but never lived in another country. It was an important learning curve for her and she had to adjust very quickly.
“I landed in Milan and had classes two days later,” she says.
“At the start I was up and down. Some days I felt like things were going well and the next day I’d feel like I was very far away from everything I know. Having the structure of uni really helped me to settle in.”
The teaching style at NABA was different to what Ruby had experienced at RMIT and she had to attend classes five days a week.
“All of my classes were in English but when I tried to practise Italian with locals, they spoke to me in English,” Ruby laughs.
“I really enjoyed the subjects I had: digital drawing, digital publishing, experimental graphics, and advertising.
“I feel like the exchange really opened up my world and now I have an international network of friends. At the end of my exchange, I went to visit friends I made at NABA in Turkey, Portugal and Copenhagen.”
Ruby is now living in Copenhagen with a friend she met at NABA. She hopes to get work in magazine publishing and publication design, with a preference for project management and creative direction roles.
