Student Journals: AIFS in London, England

Lauren Shields
St. John Fisher College
Richmond, the International University in London, England

When someone asks me to summarize studying abroad in London, my response is "absolute amazing." I don't even know where to begin.

On January 14th, I embarked on a journey to a place I would call “home” and be living at for four months: Richmond’s Kensington Campus. Although I had been to London before with my family, I was still excited about the fact that I would be living there for four months.

Throughout the whole semester I tried to immerse myself in the culture of London and in the great diversity there. While I was in London, two of the courses I was enrolled in at the Kensington Campus, “Museums and Galleries” and “the History of London,” showed me a different side of the city that I don’t think I would have ever taken advantage of or seen. Through these two classes I learned about, and toured, many famous museums and galleries in London. This course gave me the opportunity to see places I may not have heard about ordinarily. Through the “History of London” course I learned about the most important events in London’s history and how London came to be. I found this to be an interesting course because it gave me the background I needed on the city I was living in. The other course that I was enrolled in, “Comparative World Religions” I learned about the various religions in our world.

Besides attending class I was often traveling with friends all over Europe, seeing what other countries had to offer. Some of the trips that I went on were: Edinburgh, Scotland; Cinque Terre, Milan, and Genoa, Italy; Málaga, Spain; Dublin, Ireland; Stonehenge and Bath, England; Paris, France; and Amsterdam, Netherlands. Some of these trips were thought-out planned trips, whilst others were planned days before with just a short itinerary of things to do and places to do.

Another marvelous opportunity I had while I was in London was to volunteer in an elementary school. This was one of the most valuable experiences because in the United States I was studying for degrees in Childhood and Special Education. Dom Alessio, the Director of the Study Abroad Program, had connections in an elementary school in Bromley, just a short train ride outside of London. For four weeks I went to Pickhurst Junior School where I worked with the Year 6 students. Year 6 students are between the ages of 10-11 and would be comparable to 5th grade in the United States. There I assisted students with their daily work and proofread their writing assignments, guided students on how to complete projects efficiently, and helped students in a math lesson that required them to match fractions to their appropriate decimal.

The memories from those trips, Pickhurst Junior School, and my experiences in London will always stay with me as the best four months of my life (or at least so far)! Even though it has been two years since I’ve studied abroad, I still stay in contact with about 15 students that I met there and who live all over the United States. We email back and forth and have made visits to each other. I have also been back to London since studying abroad and it was as if I was just there yesterday because everything was so vivid in my memory. I hope to continue to go back to London again in the next year or so, and maybe even end up teaching students there one day.