Today marks 29 days until I takeoff for London and I wish I did not have to wait that long. I’ll be studying at the Queen Mary University of London and taking courses in both computer science and neuroscience while I’m there. I have yet to finalize my course schedule, but as of right now it looks like I’m taking introductory engineering, web technology development/ graphical user interfaces, digital audio creation and analysis, hoping to get into a London museum course, and neuromuscular biomechanics. After reading all of that you must be thinking a couple of things: how do I plan on managing that course load, will I have any time to travel, and do I have a life outside of academics. Well, I am happy to say that I do in fact have a life outside of all of this, I plan on traveling quite often (I think I have a list of 40 some-odd places), and to be quite honest I have no idea about how I’m going to manage. From what I’ve read the academic structure in London is a bit different, grades are largely dependent upon a final test, all of the professors’ names are either William or Mary, and the final exam for introduction to becoming a London taxi driver may take you a few minutes.
I chose to study abroad in London but I’d say the top two reasons are: the academic environment and the urban setting. Throughout my 20 years of life I have traveled all over the world, from Croatia to Japan to California, but I have not yet had the chance to make it to the United Kingdom. So, in hopes of adopting the British accent I decided to apply to Queen Mary and cannot wait to get there. I wouldn’t say that I am nervous, but there are a number of things that have to get done, but are currently on hold until my finals week runs it course.
From my travel experience I have a few tips that I think could be pretty helpful: