Spring has arrived!

Daffodils in St. James's Park. London.

These past couple of weeks have been pretty great.

Spring comes a little earlier here in the UK than back in the states, though so far the weather's been so much milder anyway. Lovin' the sunshine (or cloudless days). It makes waking up and walking to class much more bearable.

I've found that the attitude amongst students here is much more relaxed. Of course, I'm comparing it to CMU's. But it's really nice and refreshing to be around people who aren't completely stressed by their studies. Instead they take time out to enjoy life's finer things, or just to take a break. When asking my friends what they did over the weekend, or even since last class, I don't get replies along the lines of "Oh I was working all night on my Algebra problem set" or "I was revising for my Algebra midterm exam." Instead I get replies like "I was out drinking with my mates for St. Patty's" (mind you, St. Patty's fell on a Tuesday this year) or "I was out clubbing." I'm impressed by how laidback British students are, but I think the education system lends itself very well to letting students discover themselves on their own time, and pretty much just grow up with their true passions as their guide. Students at the most competitive colleges in the US are drowning in problem sets in classes they don't even like, in a major they also don't even like but would get them a decent job after graduation. Yes, those things are important, but it's important to pay attention to the self and what makes it happy. If you required every British and American student at a top university to keep a twitter and aggregated the tags, the most popular tag for the British would be "fun" whereas the American one would be "fml."

These were posted in the Maths building. This made me smile and love this school/study abroad experience slightly more. If you ignored the paragraph before this, this pretty much sums it up:


School aside, I've been doing some light traveling on some weekends. Last weekend I went to Cardiff, Wales. I have mixed feelings about Cardiff since it was just like any other British city I had visited already, but at least it had a very picturesque bay that we were lucky to visit on a sunny day.


All in all, Cardiff Bay reminded me very much of the Jersey Shore. In fact, there were so many swanky boutiques, small chocolate shops, and restaurants that I thought I was at Pier Village. Alas, it was still very relaxing to be near the water. I do quite miss the beach.

As if the spring-y weather and general laid back attitude here weren't enough to make my time here so much more enjoyable than if I were back at CMU, my two friends from high school decided to spend their spring break in the UK! I had a blast seeing them and I was quite flattered that they came to visit/go to the Dr. Who museum but that's irrelevant :P.

As a result I returned to London to hang out with them after classes finished on Wednesday (at 11am btw :) )

London Eye, as seen from St. James's Park. Disappointed that they drained the river/lake and the trees haven't regained their leaves yet, but still pretty.

Obligatory Big Ben picture.
Tower of London! Unfortunately it was closed by the time we arrived there.
The Tower Bridge. Even though it was twilight, there were still a ton of tourists snapping pictures on the bridge.
I'm currently less than a week from spring break ("Easter holiday" as they call it here), which also means I'm less than a week away from the crazy backpacking trip through Europe for 3 weeks. It's going to be intense and frankly it hasn't quite hit me yet. Of course, I have to get through two midterm exams before I leave. Boo. But the one nice thing about CMU is it has more than prepared me for the academic challenges here.

On Education and Meeting People in Academia

The British academic system differs significantly from the American system.

This was emphasized several times during various orientations. Mostly the fact that the British system expects students to figure out how to study independently instead of issuing homework to force them to learn. I was kind of scared by this. Also, this means that the semester final grade entirely rides on the midterm and the final exams. Mmm. OK, that's it for boring details.

I'm taking 4 math classes here. They each meet twice a week for lecture, and once a week for tutorial. Tutorial is the equivalent of recitation in the US, except they're run more like office hours in the US. Basically, you work on math problems in the classroom and if you're stuck, you raise your hand and either the professor (yes, the professor is present at tutorials!) or one of his TA-like grad students comes over to help you. Because of the nature of tutorials, they're sometimes referred to as examples classes. This is how the math courses roll here. Or should I say "modules"? Yea. Other notes:

• Module = Class/Course
• Course = Major
• Faculty = Department
  

I didn't know what to expect during my first few examples classes. I did not print out the handouts containing the problems, so I showed up to class unprepared (gasp!). I asked the grad student on duty what I should do, and she suggested I could review my notes or leave and go do something else. I then asked, "How about I look on with another [prepared] student?" She looked at me funny but then said OK. Odd. It would've been the first thing I suggested if I were her. So I looked on with another student. Some inferences from this experience: groupwork not explicitly encouraged in the UK.

This actually goes along with another observation: all the students in university housing have single bedrooms(!). Supposedly, this is standard across all universities in the UK. Another American student remarked that this is either the cause or effect of British students not knowing how to deal with other people in their space. I don't recall which, but both are plausible.

So everyone seems to be on their own. Funny, this goes against their beloved John Donne's saying "No man is an island."

Which leads me to the main point of this. It has been a challenge for me to meet British people in my math classes.

Of course, I can't blame it all on the ~(No man is an island) -ism of the British students. Most/all of my reader(s) are aware of my general personality. Therefore, double whammy. Of course, I had to start changing things about my SOP, because that's easier. Besides, I have a wonderful excuse if they look at me funny for striking up conversation during examples classes -- I'm an American, therefore I don't know better. Disturbingly, this increases my confidence. But hey, whatever works.

In case you're wondering, I've made a small handful of friends here, the vast majority of whom are American. As for non-Americans, they are Asians and also study abroad students. So really, I haven't been getting a British perspective on things, unless you count my British flatmates, though I don't see them very often.