Nineteen years ago, when Hmalan Hunter-Xénié first came to Canberra to study at the Australian National University, she felt like she'd landed on another planet. For one thing it was cold. No one was barefoot like back home in the streets of Darwin. Here they wore black and blue suits - and things called uggboots.

"I couldn't really cope," she said. "Being away from my family and from country was really hard. I'd grown up out bush."

The Canberra Times profiles graduate student Hmalan Hunter-Xénié, telling her story of studying at the Fenner School as an Indigenous woman from the Top End - read the full story at the Canberra Times website.