Recently I returned home from my study abroad program at the Queen Mary University of London and am happy to be home and relax during holiday time. My experience in London was great, I enjoyed it a lot and wanted to stay there longer. The city is really huge and 3 months were not enough to discover everything that London has to offer. My favorite activity in London was visiting museums, seeing “The Phantom of the Opera” and walking around historical places. I wish to come back there somewhere in the future and do all these activities again.
UK is very culturally similar to the U.S., so I almost did not have any cultural shock, nor confrontation, or reverse cultural shock when coming back home. However, one thing I had to adjust was the education system which is much different than what U.S. private universities offer. Big class sizes were somewhat expected, lectures and seminars were straightforward and interesting. The main obstacle for me was the absence of any assignments during the semester because in the UK you only have one or two major assignments that are due at the very end of the semester and they determine your final grade. The absence of any assignments during the semester kept me relaxed but the time flew by fast and at the end of the semester I had to write a couple of papers and prepare for the exam. I did not have the best time management and I had to mobilize my resources to complete everything in a short period of time. Still, in the end, I did a good job and finished everything on time but it put some pressure on me at the end of the semester.
I don’t think that the UK education system is hard, I think it is fair and not complicated but for someone who is completely new to this, it can be difficult to adjust right away in a short time period. I am sure that students from London would experience the same thing but in reverse, if studying abroad in the U.S.
They are likely to experience difficulties right from the start because here you would have some kind of weekly assignments for your classes with short deadlines and it definitely will put pressure on someone used to the UK system.
I definitely learned a lot while living in London, I feel becoming more mature and more widely thinking. London is a megapolis that has absorbed many different cultures in itself and it is a good example of people from different cultural, historical, and religious backgrounds living together. Of course, sometimes this can lead to conflicts and misunderstandings between those people but the key here is to have respect for one another and look for a compromise in every situation. London is definitely a great choice for a student who strives to be a global citizen.