Greetings from the Isles!
Allo there chaps! Or something. I don’t even. My name is Aditya and this is my humble blog, a little place where I can share my experiences over the next term as a student at Cambridge University for the fall term. Join me in my wacky, zany adventures involving cobblestones, odd accents, and cars coming down the wrong side of the road (70% of the world’s road traffic is on the right, for pete’s sake, and the only ones on the left were once part of the British Empire. I call shenanigans).
I’m lucky enough to have the opportunity to toddle through these ancient halls of learning thanks to the Caltech Study Abroad office, which offers terms or semesters abroad at quite a few universities, including but not limited to places such as Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and even Melbourne. Myself, I chose the Cambridge scholars program, so here I am, quietly sipping tea at what the States would consider a completely unreasonable hour.
Far be it from me to tell you how to experience your college life; in the end, it’s up to you to decide what sort of experience you want to pull out of your four years as university.
Studying abroad, however, is truly a once in a lifetime possibility, a possibility that Caltech will gladly support.
I’m still receiving financial aid all the way through this term; it costs the same to study here as it does back home, barring the differences in food and so on (btw, fish and chips? Two thumbs up. Just saying).
So what sort of advantages do you get to studying abroad? You get to experience an entirely different culture, and not just for some one week visit; you get a minimum of 10 weeks with the Cambridge program, and up to 14 depending on the term length of the college you go to. You get to take classes that Caltech doesn’t offer, either because of curriculum differences or just because Tech is tiny. You get to meet new people all with different perspectives, and oftentimes with majors you wouldn’t normally see, such as history or theology. Finally, you have an excuse to travel, and if you want to see the world as much as I do, you get to do it in a time of your life where you normally just wouldn’t have that much time.
Time is another thing I currently lack, to be frank; there is work to be done and tea to be sipped, and I’m all done with my tea. Expect a bunch more posts from me soon, there’s plenty to talk about here! Good Day and Whatnot, Aditya
P.S. Each post will probably come with some cool completely unrelated photo. Here’s my courtyard! Its sort of nice, I guess…
