Semester Expectations v Reality
London has five major airports. None of them would be receiving my core group of friends from first-year, who all elected to spend the term in Prague -- rumor said beer flowed freer than water and 4.0's fell from the sky. I was at Heathrow, and my 25kg suitcase was missing a wheel. Of course it started to rain.
LHR was my first time abroad. Though technically I'd split my first 18 years between Phoenix, Beijing, and Toronto, PHX, PEK, and YYZ all meant home. We never had spare cash for vacations, and chatter of taming camels in Marrakesh or Oktoberfest in Munich only spelled out hectic planning and anxiety. The plan was to stay in London, get fish and chips, and salvage my GPA.
For the most part it went according to plan. I stayed in the UK, ate more Chicken Tikka/Bubble and Squeak than anticipated, did okay in school.
Three factors were overlooked in my model: 1. NYU sponsored trips would ease me into the pace of travel, 2. nine girls fighting over two bathrooms can be a good thing, 3. Classes are truly, unequivocally, windows into people and the world.
NYU London took us to Stonehenge and Bath, West-End shows and ceilidh dances filled with bagpipes and fiddles. Living with a lot of strangers arms you with a built-in posse to take on whatever the city throws at you. And classes, oh classes, introduce you to people passionate about things outside of your typical spheres of interaction – professors and classmates alike.
I took an architecture class that brought us to a different part of London every week. We sketched together - sophomores in finance, seniors in applied psychology – in crumbling old rail station waiting halls 40 minutes south of the city. Our professor saw rich meaning in the slightest balustrade detail, and he communicated his vision so eloquently with a force that drove us to want to walk all 35 Boroughs in the city and them some. I spent fall break in Scotland with two friends from that class.
The point, I guess, is that you meet new people and have a much better time than anticipated. Whether you spend every weekend away or at beigel shops along Brick Lane, NYU London is less scary than it might seem.
