Sorry I haven’t posted anything this past week; the first week of school/work was crazy! Definitely a huge adjustment from student life at TCU.
My very first class on Monday is a survey of Shakespeare, located at Regent campus which is roughly a 20 minute walk from my dorm. Unlike at home, where one class is held two or three times a week, all of my “modules” only meet once a week for two hours. Can’t decide which system I like better yet. The professor was nice enough, and didn’t seem as strict as I expected. We are expected to read a play a week, but those assignments aren’t as rigid as they would be at school. The way classes are graded is also completely different here; my final grade for the class is made up of only two papers; one worth 30%, the other worth 70%.
Tuesday was my first day as an intern at London & Partners. The office is fairly easy to get to by the Underground, and it takes me about 20 minutes to get there. It is located right along the Thames overlooking London Bridge, so the view is amazing. It also is right next door to the London City Hall building that everybody calls “The Egg”. Everybody at the office is incredibly nice, and I really think my intern experience will be a good one. For now though, learning all the intricacies of British foreign direct investment is still pretty overwhelming. I’ll get the hang of it eventually. I work every Tuesday morning, then all day Wednesday and Friday, giving me close to 20 hours a week.
On Thursday, I have my “Art and Society” class in the mornings, and then another English literature course in the afternoon. Art and society is designated only for study abroad students, and each week we travel as a class to one of the multiple museums or galleries around London. For our first class we went to the British Museum, which was HUGE! We were only able to stay for an hour and a half, so I will definitely need to go back on my own to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I did get a chance to see the Rosetta Stone, which was incredibly interesting.
My English class later on Thursday afternoon seemed pretty standard, but the grading scale is also completely different from what I am used to. It doesn’t seem to unmanageable though. One bummer about taking all english classes is that there are only girls in my classes…. guess I may have picked the wrong minor.
All in all, it was a successful, albeit hectic, first week of school. Hopefully as I move forward I will become more confident with my schedule. Here’s hoping this next week runs as smoothly as the last. I also just booked tickets for a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland for next weekend with a few friends, so planning for that should be interesting.
Until next time!!
Oops! I'm In London! 