I am currently sitting in the Newark Airport, watching the sun set over the New York City skyline, really not a bad place to be. I am waiting for my now delayed flight to London where I will be spending my fall semester interning and studying abroad. Having been born in Germany, and lived most of my life in central Florida with my Latin American relatives, I have had an interesting cultural experience to say the least growing up. I spent last summer in Germany, and it was a great experience to say the least but when I saw the opportunity to spend a semester in London, I knew I had to do it. While there would be only a slight language barrier if at all just slang, I knew the culture of Great Britain would be vastly different than that of the United States. I thought now would also be impeccable timing as they are going through a decision to leave the European Union. How much better could the timing be? While I do not know much about life in London or the United Kingdom, I do know that it is a very diverse place, if not one of the most diverse cities in western Europe. Immersing myself into such an environment for a whole semester seemed like the best way to round off my degree in International Business.
I think aside from the coursework I will be undertaking and the internship work I will be experience; I will learn to live in a completely new environment way outside of my comfort zone. I hope to work extensively on intercultural communication at every opportunity I get. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to engage in the British culture and compare it to American culture that I am so used to. I hope to make comparisons and break my own expectations of English culture and learn to embrace more and more cultures. For some reason I feel like the British culture cannot be too different from its American counterpart, but I am eager for my preconceived notions to be broken.