To start, studying and spending my time at Queen Mary University of London has been nothing but amazing. However, there are some aspects of culture here in London that differ from what I am used to in America. Most notably, the approach to academics at my university is much more relaxed and unstructured. Each individual department at QMUL is its own school within the university, for this reason, there is no centralized scheduling. As a result of this, whatever your major study is, that school has priority for your courses and the other electives if they do not fit, you cannot take them. Also, you cannot have your primary school switch them, each elective must be manually added by the individual school. In the first week, I was running around building to building relaying information in what seemed the most inefficient mode of scheduling possible. Once all was settled and my schedule was cohesive I finally relaxed. After talking to other students on campus about their scheduling, they shared similar experiences. Despite the process being tedious they explained to me that is just how scheduling operated at UK universities. It is part of the experience to be an independent individual and actually care that your schedule was how it was supposed to be. From this experience, I gained perspective that the reasons I thought the scheduling was initially a nightmare, actually caused me to talk to other professors at QMUL, see new buildings on campus, and interact with my peers. I learned to go into situations more open-minded and not dwell on wasting time here doing silly things like scheduling, when just being here and doing normal activities is part of the experience as well. Strategies like calling my parents, talking to other friends abroad, or getting a snack from the American food section of the campus grocery help me de-stress and enjoy the process of being abroad.
