I have to say my first week here was an overwhelming and emotional one. I have my good days and my bad ones but my experience here has been far from what I expected it to be like.  The picture below is the very first picture I took since I landed in London. Trying to adapt to the city and new culture with people you do not know was a lot for me

to take in which caused me to miss home a lot and not want to be here.  The hardest part for me is feeling like I’m alone even though I have a ton of support, walking to and from class in this huge city makes me feel like I’m alone. The dorm living here is also a lot different then how I imagined it being like from the information I received about it. All of the students who came here through CISabroad were randomly placed in the hall I am in and so it isn’t as community based as I thought it would be. Also, I found on University of Westminster’s website that they rent their rooms commercially during the summer months.  I’ve met two girls who only stayed here for ten days, a girl who will be here for two years, and I’ve seen people of all ages which was all unexpected.  My hall is located outside of central London but is close to the London eye! There is also this authentic street food festival near the eye on the weekends which is absolutely delicious!

My main form of transportation that I have had to learn would be what they call the tube!

The tube is an underground train system and is the second largest in the world! Learning about this the first day was very intimidating and I was terrified of it because I was not used to using public transportation much at home. I had to get my oyster card which is what they use here to easily use the tube and buses but there are several ways to load money onto them. Everybody has to scan their card in order to get in and out of all train stations. After a week of practice I have become much more comfortable with it now and can even blend in with the locals by having to cram myself on when it’s busy! An interesting thing I’ve observed that has really stuck out is how few trash cans they have around the city but yet it’s pretty clean everywhere!  Every time I find myself with garbage because I had to eat to eat on the go or something I always find myself holding on to it for awhile before I come across a trash can.

Lastly, this week I had orientation at University of Westminster and began my class! This session I am taking Online Entertainment Management and I like my professor, she is pretty relaxed and understands that we stay busy outside of class exploring around! My class has 11 student in it including two local students surprisingly.

University of Westminster has four separate campuses divided by areas of study. Regent campus is the photo to the left and that is where we had orientation.  My class is at Cavendish campus this session which is a little bit of a walk from here but I will have my session 2 class at Regent campus. It has been interesting to learn about their how they do things because it is so different compared to how things are done in the states. Our entire grade in the class is made up of two modules, a in-module assessment and end-of-module assessment. Our assessments are graded by receiving marks and each gets marked three times. At the start I was very nervous for my class because I heard how many Americans will fail their classes here because of how different it is and not being disciplined enough but I feel much better now that my class has begun and I know my professor. I think I will enjoy it and do just fine! Everybody has class Monday-Thursday from 10:0am-1:00pm and on Thursdays my class gets to go on visits, which is what they call field trips. This Thursday we went to the Science Museum to see Google’s web lab exhibit which I actually really enjoyed. We got to participate in and observe four different experiments and a learned a lot from it as well.

Although this first week was extremely long and rough for me I have tried hard to stay strong and keep positive. I have been keeping in touch with my family which is nice because I miss them a lot but I have also gotten to know quite a bit of people here so far which keeps me distracted most of the time. I’m going on a trip to Wales this weekend through the social program at University of Westminster which should be fun so although rough, I still am trying to make the most of my time here!