Like many Australian college students, Lisa Saven, now 26, traveled abroad after graduation, spending much of 1996 in Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Slovenia, Hungary and other countries. Saven, who emigrated from South Africa to Australia during her last year of high school, moved to the US in 1997. She now handles corporate and marketing public relations for high tech companies as an account supervisor for Los Angeles's the Bohle Company.

Monster.com: Australians are known for traveling a lot, especially right after finishing school. Did your experiences traveling help you develop an international career?

Lisa Saven: I think so. My feeling was that I have 30 years to work, and the experiences I'd gain by traveling, seeing all these different places and having to think quickly on my feet, would really help broaden my experience and make me more worldly and aware of how things work in other places.

Mc: How did you explain the experience in interviews?

LS: I emphasized that I had a year after I finished college to see so many different places and experience so many different cultures, which really helped me understand how different people work. I knew when I got into the working environment I'd be much better prepared to deal with different personalities and people from different countries and to work on different accounts with people based throughout the world. I was better equipped to deal with the different ways people work.

Mc: What tips do you have for someone finishing college and thinking about traveling for a year without spending a whole lot of money?

LS: I worked my way through college. I had two or three jobs the whole time, and I saved a lot. I knew that at the end of college I would be traveling; I had that goal in mind. When I traveled, I was gone for 10 months, and I didn't work the entire time. I traveled on a pretty tight budget. I carefully planned, looking at the countries I was going to and how much money I would need on a daily basis.

If you haven't had the opportunity to work and save as much, the alternative, which a lot of Australians do, is to start off in London, say, with a bit of money and work a while to earn some pounds. Use London as a base, then travel for two months around Europe, come back to London, earn some more, and then go back out again. It's not a fancy experience you're having - you're exploring.

Mc: Has there been any culture shock from living in the US?

LS: If I'd come from South Africa straight here, I would have had a much greater culture shock. Coming from Australia, there was less. Australia and South Africa are fairly similar in culture, so it was, to some extent, a little different, even just in the attitude toward work. Here the whole focus is work. I just went on a two-week vacation, and people were looking at me and saying, "You're going for two weeks? That's so long!" When I was traveling, I met up with some Australian friends who were gone for six weeks, and they have full-time jobs.

Mc: So Americans see work differently?

LS: That's a very significant part of the difference -- the whole attitude toward work and the attitude toward relaxation. Here, you relax if you have time, whereas in Australia, relaxation is an integral part of your schedule. That's still something I have a hard time dealing with. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. I've accepted that I only get two weeks vacation, but it doesn't make me happy.