Pre-Health Classes

Alyssa Benjamin Pre-Health Semester in London, England

Date

January 19, 2016
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I know that everyone has been waiting for me to talk about my classes so here I go! Through my program I take two classes at the Arcadia London Center and two classes at Queen Mary University of London. These two very different learning environments go about teaching in very different ways.

My Arcadia classes are very small. Both classes have less than 15 people and involve many field trips. Two weeks into my London: City of Art course, we have already been to two different museums. Each week we will be visiting a new museum to analyze both the art and the way that it is presented. I was really eager to take this class because I basically grew up in an art gallery. My mom’s art gallery and my local art center served as foundations for my love of art. I am very excited about this course and I think it will be a great way to see London through its museums. My other Arcadia class goes along with my Pre-Health program. It focuses on the history and development of the British health system. I have a passion for both medicine and history so I was hooked from the first class. Professor Eversley has real world experience in public health sector working in Northern Ireland as well as Iraq. He has challenged us to question things we have learned and really research the news we hear. The interactive learning environment brings some familiarity to this foreign place. Bucknell shares a similar learning philosophy and I enjoy the one-on-one interactions with my professors.

At Queen Mary classes are much larger. The school population is around 20,000 students and my classes contain about 80 students each. That being said, my lecturers are just as passionate as those at Arcadia. My psychology professor is a ray of sunshine and my parasites professor has a great sense of humor. On the first day of class my Parasite and Infectious Diseases professor asked if anyone had been bitten by a Tsetse fly. I actually had the misfortune of receiving a painful bite while on safari with my family. After I raised my hand he kept alluding to me in class but it was all in good humor.

Overall, I am absolutely thrilled with my classes. I only have each class once a week so that scheduling will take a bit of getting used to. I have no class on Friday and am hoping to take advantage of my long weekend to do some outside of the classroom learning.