Siobhan Bubner had just turned 21 and faced a tough ask – to survey teenage boys and young men about sexual health and attitudes to domestic violence.
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In Indonesia.
She had never previously travelled to Asia.
"Obviously I'm female and I'm white, and I don't really speak the language," Bubner says.
But curiosity, wanting to challenging herself, to get beyond her comfort zone, was exactly why she had gone to Indonesia in the first place.
Bubner, from Victoria University in Melbourne, is one of more than 10,000 young Australian students in the past three years to win government sponsorship to study or take up a short internships across about 35 countries in Asia, under a program known as the New Colombo Plan.
"I thought it would be really exciting and I wanted to work in development, so it ticked all the boxes," she says.
"Indonesia was amazing, it's such an incredible country."
The exchange program is a favourite of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the goal to connect the next generation with the growing economies of the neighbourhood.
But while students are being urged to look abroad in growing numbers, academics at home fear cutbacks in the field of Asian studies in Australian universities puts the understanding of the region at risk.
Most concern is focused on the Australian National University in Canberra, traditionally the main centre of Asia and Pacific studies in Australia. About 15 staff in the School of Culture History and Language have been effectively shown the door after a budget crackdown, with ripples felt across the country.
"Anything that happens at ANU is magnified across Australia," says Louise Edwards a professor of Chinese history at UNSW and president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia.
"We all make pilgrimages to ANU for the latest in the field."
With fewer than 6 per cent of Australian students estimated to be studying Asian languages, any moves that might also limit the study of culture revives a long standing fear about Australia's lack of "Asia literacy".
"The appreciation of how Australia is perceived in the region is as important as how you hold your chopsticks or hand your business card over," says Edwards.
"We'll lose that kind of subtlety if Asian studies is gutted."
Study of Asian languages in Australia remains low. Photo: Phil Carrick
The fear is not only for students, but an understanding of Asia in the wider community, too.
Daniel Botsman is a renowned international specialist on Japanese history from Yale University, who grew up in Brisbane and studied at ANU in the 1980s.
But returning home to Australia recently he was dismayed to find bookshop shelves still crowded with modern European history, rather than Asia.
"If there are any people in the English speaking world that need to know about Asia, it's Australians," Botsman says.
But despite the concern, the emphasis on student exchange is widely seen as a good step.
Ms Bubner, who spent most of her time in Jakarta, received about $3000 for a six-week placement, covering the majority of her flights, accommodation and other expenses.
Most students under the program travel for between two to four weeks, some spending a semester, and a select few are supported with high-end scholarships for longer.
The program has a budget of more than $130 million over the next three years.
Labor's Tanya Plibersek said this week exchanges are "terrific", but worried some of the high-end scholarships are "extraordinary" and some of the programs could be trimmed.
Labor has pledged 100 scholarships each year of up to $20,000 for Australian school teachers to develop Asian language skills.
