Well the first week of classes has come and gone. One thing to note is that the classes comparatively are way longer than American classes. I believe my longest class for my communications major is an hour and a half. Here my longest class is five hours. There are breaks in between the class but it is still a very long time to be thinking about one thing. I am taking London Fashion, an Internship Course and Introduction to Media and Culture Studies. All the professors are really nice and a lot of them have have a fun-loving quirky quality that I love.
One thing I noted about the difference between American studying and studying in the UK is that they do not take notes. The students just try to pay attention to the material and hopefully pick everything up. It isn’t about memorization. It was definitely weird to be typing up notes while people were just trying to listen on the first day.
London Fashion is a really cool course. It is held on the Harrow campus so it is a bit out of Central London but all the artsy and creative people are held on the Harrow campus and it is a really cool place to interact with other people. I definitely recommend if you enjoy a creative group of people. It is in zone 4 of London so it is similar to the Lakeshore experience if you are reading this from University of Wisconsin-Madison. The internship course (so far) about networking and what the internship experience is like. It is held on the Marylebone campus which is probably the most confusing campus out of all of them to me. The last course is similar to Communication Arts 325 and it is about the media and why people are so invested in it. It is held on the Regent campus which I think is the easiest campus to navigate. TIP: Take a look at where your classes are in the building prior or get there early so you are not lost for the whole day. It can be a bit confusing finding your way around especially if you have classes on different campuses like me.
Over the first week of classes I met with my boss for the internship. There were two other interns which was nice so I wasn’t alone in meeting him for the first time like I thought. The organization called We Make Change seems like an amazing and really supportive place to work. I am excited for my first official day of work.
For the weekend I took a trip to Wales. I have a friend there so I spent the weekend visiting their family. I went to Castel Coch and Nash Point that has a lighthouse. There was an amazing hike to get to Castel Coch where I saw a beautiful rainbow. (I am from New York City so seeing a rainbow is a big deal to me)
All in all, the firsts have been absolutely amazing.