I partly came to London to run away from GW. But, over the course of the past month, I've come to appreciate GW even more. It's less of the school as an institution, but the idea that GW is a place where I feel like I've established myself. I've routinized it and embedded myself within it. It's not always perfect, but if one of those mini college-specific disasters struck--if I messed up a paper's due date or had to seek help from some kind of department--I'd know exactly what to do.
UCL's infrastructure is different, and, as a senior at GW, adjusting to that infrastructure is more difficult if only because I've become more stubborn regarding how I believe things should work at a university. It's an unhealthy and hard-headed way to live as a college student, but it's a lifestyle that I'm going to assume many students who study abroad lead.
Everything came to a head this week, and all my papers for my classes were due. Over the course of the past six months, I stupidly forgot how annoyingly stressful college can actually be. While researching and writing this week, I realized that I hadn't really done anything that I didn't really want to do since I left GW in May. Yes, I had to do work at my internship over the summer and being home brings about its share of responsibilities, but doing the daily college grind of college assessment is a particular kind of labor that brings its own particular kinds of anxieties.
Studying abroad for the first month--especially in Europe, where the grading systems is usually based on one or two research paper assignments--can feel like a weird extended summer vacation. You have readings and responsibilities, yes, but it all still feels off-putting. You don't have that familiar grind that being at GW affords.
So this week was challenging, and strange. After finishing my papers, I realized that I didn't really know how to print them and where I had to go to turn them in. It was a small challenge--one that was resolved after asking a question or two and battling a printer for about an hour--but it was an awkward one. It was one of the quotidian challenges that made this whole experience feel even weirder. I am in London, and everything that is familiar is an ocean away.
I write all this to say, prepare yourselves for the tiny adjustments while you're abroad. Also, take the time to appreciate how helpful everyone at Gelman is. You'll miss them when you're trying to research for a paper.