Hi everyone!!!!
Well soon will be my second full day at Lancaster and honestly, this place is amazing. I’ll start back with my bus ride here. Normally I would be attempting to take lots and lots of pictures through a bus window and then getting annoyed with the inevitable glare on the picture. So I decided to skip that bit and just watch all the cars go by the country side. Pretty soon I started mildly keeping track of the cars I saw going past. From what I saw, Citron, Peugeot, Volkswagen and Volvo were the most popular. But after that, I SAW SO MANY BMWs and AUDIs!!! A lot of really really nice ones too! I also counted 13 Porsches in that hour as well which I thought was a lot.
Moving forward, I live on the best floor with the best people around. There are 8 of us who share 2 toilets, 2 showers, and a kitchen. Everyone is really nice, 2 of the girls are also from America, one from Canada, and the other girl is from Manchester. All of the boys are from England. Our first night here most of us were pretty knackered so instead of going to the toga party most of us crashed in the one guy’s room and watched There’s Something about Mary. I also bought my first bottle of wine!
Yesterday we had to be up and out by 9:45 to go to a series of talks for International Students. We learned about the history of Lancaster, how academics differ here (IT’S SO DIFFERENT but from what I can tell, seems a bit better, more on that later), and a few other things. It was a long day but they gave us tea and cakes at the end of it :D. Afterwards, 3 of the girls and I went into town, walked around a bit and stocked up on supplies. I found the Top Gear magazine and bought it! It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing all the different foods and stuff they had in Sainsbury’s (the supermarket we went to). Then we came back and worked out timetables for registration.
Yesterday we had to be up and out by 9:45 to go to a series of talks for International Students. We learned about the history of Lancaster, how academics differ here (IT’S SO DIFFERENT but from what I can tell, seems a bit better, more on that later), and a few other things. It was a long day but they gave us tea and cakes at the end of it :D. Afterwards, 3 of the girls and I went into town, walked around a bit and stocked up on supplies. I found the Top Gear magazine and bought it! It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing all the different foods and stuff they had in Sainsbury’s (the supermarket we went to). Then we came back and worked out timetables for registration.
I love you Geneseo, but registration here is so much better. It’s a little different for Freshers and International Students. We’ll actually go to one of the buildings on campus and all the departments will be there. We’ll just go around to whatever department a course we want to take is in, and then tell them we want to sign up for it. Very few classes here have quotas so I don’t have to worry about not being able to get into one of my classes. SO MUCH BETTER AND LESS STRESSFUL!
I have my room pretty much set up and decorated. I also have an amazing view! I can watch the sun set over Grizedale college (the residence hall I’m living in, it’s called a college here). I took a few pictures so go check it out on facebook if you would like to see it. The only thing that isn’t so good is that I have limited internet usage. I can go on websites like facebook and youtube as much as I want, but anything that requires downloading or just a lot of bandwidth (like video chatting on skype) I am limited to 30 gb of usage. I’m not sure if it’s per month or for the whole semester. Also, washers (£1.70)and dryers (£1.20) are kind of expensive here. Geneseo, you spoiled me with your free laundry services.
So far I am absolutely loving it here. I register for classes today and then having a meeting with the study abroad society e board to make our poster for Fresher’s fair. If I have time I’ll go into town and try to sort out my phone, being essentially phoneless is not fun :(
Classes are a lot different here. Typically here, you’ll only go to 1 lecture a week (typically an hour long from what I have seen) and then you’ll probably have a workshop, seminar or laboratory at another time during the week. The rest of the time is you doing reading and learning on your own about the subject. Sometimes the professors will give you explicit reading lists but that’s usually only for first year modules (classes). They also have 3 terms, Michaelmas, Lent, and Summer. Typically, you’ll register for your full year of classes and then not take any exams until the Summer term. A lot of the classes run for the full year.
I’ll update more later :D
“WALKING IN A GRIZEDALE WONDERLAND!”
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