LIVING IN THE UK

In the words of someone who immigrated to London and became one of its most famous residents, “In London everyone is different, which means everyone can fit in” – yes, he is fictional, but the idea is right.  This is a truly diverse, international city, where nearly 40% of the population was born outside of the UK, including 25% born outside Europe.  Everyone is different and that means somehow everyone fits in.

As a study abroad student in London, you are balancing things – being a university student, with all that entails in terms of time management and work; being a tourist, living in one of (if not the) world’s greatest cities; being a newcomer, someone navigating somewhere new.  Using a language which in which you are fluent but speaking differently, with the most familiar words – course, class, paper, final not only mean different things than they do in the US, they can mean different things at different British universities.

As a student you might feel, at first, that you have much more “free time”, with much less “in class” time.  Except that “free time” isn’t actually free, because there’s a much great expectation of independent work outside class, and guidelines such as one hour of class = six hours of reading.  Or you might find that the way you are taught requires a much great time commitment (labs are very different here) and your schedule looks packed in ways you’d hoped it wouldn’t be.

But the important thing to remember how you use your time is up to you.  Your “free” time might not be as free as you thought, but it is flexible, so you can figure out what works best for you.  Study in the morning, go exploring in the afternoon.  You can go to a market on Thursday, and the library on Saturday.  Be a tourist during the week and avoid the weekend crowds.  Go in the evening – many museums have special late night openings.

Don’t worry about feeling you don’t know what to do.  When you’re living abroad, some things which seem straightforward can be complicated. Take finding an address: you need the postcode (the combination of letters and numbers, like WC1 3AE) alongside the street name, as there are more than thirty “Church Road” in London (and not including Church Street, Lane, and Way).  Some street names don’t sound like names – “Cheapside”, “Houndsditch”, “Cockpit Steps”; others are deceptive -- Rotton Row is in one of the poshest parts of London.  Queueing is another good example – there is a queue for everything, and if you don’t have to queue to pay, chances are you didn’t see the queue and just queue jumped (and people will be too polite to point this out).  There are unwritten rules – never stand on the left on the escalator tube – but you will absorb and adapt to them without even realising.

It is up to you to find your place in London.  There are hundreds of clubs and opportunities at each university, and that’s a good place to start. What better way to get to know a place than mixing with locals who share your interests? By the time you’ve found the café where you become a regular, the market you always go to, and your favourite park, you’ll practically be a local yourself.