School Impressions and Weekend in Wales

This is going to be a long, text-filled post with some pictures at the end, so get ready if you're actually interested in what's going on! It's about to get real.

Okay, enough of the music! I've finished my first week at school, and though there were some scheduling problems at first, all of my classes will transfer their credits to USC and I'm on track with my Marketing and PR/Advertising classes.

Classes so far are good! But very different from at home. Normally a full schedule is 15 hours (5 classes), but here a full load is 16 hours (4 classes). Instead of classes going through different phases, as in, you have to take intro classes before you take higher level classes, courses here are taken in "levels." For instance, a level 4 class is like taking a freshman or introductory class. Level 5 is a sophomore/junior level, level 6 is a senior level class. Most students studying abroad try to take their electives or easy classes that don't necessarily go towards their majors while they are abroad so that they don't have to stress too much about the school work. Unfortunately for me, I pretty much completed all of my electives during my freshman and sophomore years, so I'm taking Marketing and PR classes. I'm pretty good in those areas, though, so I'm not too worried! I'm scheduled to take these four classes:

Consumer Behavior (level 4)
Distribution and Retail (level 5)
Personal Selling and Sales Management (level 6)
PR and Sales Promotion (level 6)

So I'm taking two senior level classes. I tried to get out of them, but most of the other level 5 business classes have filled up, so I'm out of luck there. I have group projects in three out of my four classes, which I'm not really looking forward to, but I've met some nice people in my classes that don't seem like slackers.

All of my classes are at the Marlyebone campus, which you can see here on Google Maps. Clearly the Google Maps car came around in the spring or summer, because London absolutely does not look that gorgeous right now. Actually, as I'm looking out of our kitchen window in my apartment it's snowing!


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It is definitely different having all of my classes in one building, but it also takes away the rush between classes. For each of my classes I have one lecture in a large class, then a small seminar with a different professor. I have class everyday, and my earliest class of the week is at 10:00 am, which gives me plenty of time to make it there on the tube. I won't walk there, since to walk it takes about an hour, but by tube the commute is only about 30 minutes. If you're wondering how I get to class or where the campus is in London, click here.

I haven't met tons of Brits yet, but seeing as I've only been there a week, I'll have a little more time to do that. I have met a few people from Germany, Iraq, Australia, and Spain in my classes who have all been in London a while and are very welcoming! Unfortunately, I couldn't get out of my Friday seminar at 1:00, so I'm the only person I know with any kind of Friday class, but the people in the seminar and my professor are all super friendly!

After my first week of class I've had a big weekend. I signed up for a tour group through Westminster that will be taking us on various tours and activities over the semester, and our first tour was a weekend trip to Wales. It's been snowing quite a bit for the last few days or so (and people in London are apparently just as used to it as people in SC are), so our plans changed a bit, but we had so much fun!

Saturday we met with the tour group at 7:30 am (SO DIFFICULT) to get on the bus, which was a little touch and go for a while since apparently some roads throughout England were closed due to the snow. We got into Wales around 11:00 and made our way to the Caerleon Roman Amphitheater, which was used for entertainment and executions when the Romans had control of the UK. Here is a photo (I took off the Caerleon website) of what the ruins normally look like.

Here is what they looked like when we went this weekend.

Granted, the green, luscious shot above had a better angle, but you get what I mean. There was lots of snow. I wore leggings under my jeans. It was that cold. Though we didn't spend as much time walking around the amphitheater as we would have had we been able to see the ground, our tour guide (whose name I forget) was really knowledgable and we learned tons! We also got to see the ruins of the Roman barracks where the soldiers lived.

Here is what they normally look like:

And my perspective:

Here are some more photos from the trip! On Sunday we visited an old castle (the name of which I can't remember, but I'll be sure to look it up) that dated back to the 13th century. Because of the ice it wasn't open, but the castle itself was beautiful! I can't tell you how many people slipped on ice trying to get around to take a good picture, though we managed to not hit the ground!

We also went to  Lacock Abbey, which was used in some of the filming in the Harry Potter movies. In some of the photos, especially of the courtyard, you can recognize parts of Hogwarts!

 

So that's it for now on the updates. I have to go do laundry for the first time in two weeks, so I'll be busy for a while tonight, but if you have any questions, ask away!