To start off my time in London has been amazing so far. I am enjoying exploring the city a lot, learning about new cultures, and meeting a lot of interesting people. Lots of nice experiences and memories to remember. It was very easy for me to adjust to the new country because U.S. and U.K. cultures have a lot of similarities and also because I was not born in the U.S. and went through the processes of adjusting to the new culture before this trip.
Despite this, I had some minor cultural confrontations here. The main one is the U.K. education system. It is quite different from the way we study at Rollins College. Unlike Rollins, Queen Mary University is not a private school and has more than 15000 students, so the lectures that I attend have about 150-200 students in each lecture theatre. Here you usually have a one-hour lecture and a one-hour seminar each week. Lectures offer you a theory and seminars allow you to practice what you learned. You are supposed to prepare for lectures by doing a lot of reading. There are only 1-2 assignments for the whole semester, so it is very important to do well on them. I am still adjusting and trying to catch up with all the readings I need to do.
Another little confrontation I had is the number of people that live in London. It was not a surprise for me to see so many people walking back and forth in such a big city but for someone who has not lived in a megapolis before it is totally a new thing. The closer you get to the city center the more crowded it gets. I just became more convinced that I prefer quiet, calm cities more than big and noisy ones.