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A letter to my fresher self

4 Feb

Dear my fresher self,

Congratulations for choosing to study English and History, I know that careful decision took a long time. You’ve been accepted at Leeds and secured the accommodation you wanted at Clarence Dock. It must feel like you have everything worked out. That’s nice. Four years later you’ll have an arts degree under your belt yet still no grand life plan. Whatever people tell you, not knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life at 21 really is OK.

Packing for the big move…

My first year student halls

Despite choosing a Northern university you will spend most of your degree socialising with Southerners who talk about how great London is. In your final year, you will meet employers at networking events who will tell you about the benefits of moving to London and about how great London is. Be prepared to defend the North, love.

Don’t rush out to buy any of the set texts- especially not from the almighty rip-off that is Blackwells- find the books in the library or get them cheap on amazon.

There was really no need to email your tutor about missing the welcome lecture. Nobody takes attendance there, just a heads up.

Students can be…how should I put it…ruthless individuals. If you are late removing your laundry from the washing machine by even a minute you will find your freshly washed clothes gathering dust on the floor.

Carnage is the most overpriced, overhyped and despicable sequence of events that could possibly be strung together in exchange for your precious money. It won’t do your bank account, your waistline, your self-esteem or your general well being any good. Please, just, don’t go.

Stop buying new fancy dress items for every fancy dress night out. That’s not what your student loan is for. Geek glasses and some face paint will suffice.

The Hidden Café is not a cutesy little coffee place you discovered by the miracle of getting lost in Freshers’ week. It is the most conspicuous place on campus to take your laptop, eat overpriced lunches and pretend that you are working.

There’s a corridor that connects the Edward Boyle library to the Roger Stevens Building- yes, really. Find it and use it- unless you in fact prefer climbing 10 flights of stairs and arriving at all of your English lectures sweating.

After your first year you’ll go on a life-changing trip to Costa Rica, during which staying in the jungle will make you feel as if you could conquer any living situation life will throw at you. But living in a below average student house with a broken boiler through the winter months in Leeds will make you drastically reconsider that statement.

During your third year you’ll find yourself in South Carolina, enjoying a whirlwind year of cowboy boots and sweet tea, country music and American football, rock-climbing and travelling all over the US: basically having more fun and learning more life lessons than the rest of your university years combined. You’ll also hear about how great London is from Americans who went there once when they were 12. Savour that year, because time flies faster than a Gamecock when you’re studying abroad.

Returning to Leeds for a final year spent in the library will feel like the world’s biggest comedown. It is. The study abroad blues never go away, especially when you insist on putting peanut butter and jam on your porridge every morning. Make sure you stick to your hobbies and passions more tightly than ever before during fourth year, as you’ll need them in order to feel like a sane human being who is more than just a degree.

If I had to end with one piece of advice for your impending university experience, it would be to make it yours. Don’t get sucked in to what everyone else might be doing, because comparison kills joy. Don’t compete with anybody but your former self: know your own values, priorities and goals and focus on exceeding those. Student life is your precious time to start figuring out who you’re going to be, so make it yours and get stuck in.

Tags: 21st century, Abroad, advice, America, British, confidence, degree, English, fresher, History, identity, learn, Leeds, mistakes, South Carolina, Student, Student life, University, USC

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Categories Student Life In Leeds

Edgy Leeds: has the phenomenon come full circle?

4 Nov

Comparing student fashion fads from South Carolina to Leeds: do all edgy nonconformists now look the same?

Since returning from my study abroad adventure in South Carolina and delving into a whirlwind schedule of final-year studies at Leeds, I’ve started to appreciate certain aspects of British university culture in a new light.

While the edgy Leeds phenomenon is nothing new to me, coming back to campus after a year away has made the grungy, vintage, second-hand look seem even more distinct than ever.

For anyone who hasn’t stumbled across what it means to be edgy in Leeds, all you have to do is (look out the window) or Google ‘edgy Leeds’ to get the gist. There you’ll find numerous news articles by The Tab and The Gryphon mulling over the trend, and the Twitter accounts of ‘edgy girl’ and ‘edgy boy Leeds’, tweeting utter gems like:

The nucleus lying at the core of the stereotype is a student dressing exclusively in vintage, second-hand clothing, wearing hand-made jewellery, (preferably accumulated from gap year travels) travel pants from India, oversized jumpers, Nike Air Max, stuff with holes in, (both deliberate and accidental), oversized scrunchies, chokers, and championing a refined taste for house music and borderline club nights the rest of us mainstream cattle haven’t a hope of knowing about.

The edgy look couldn’t offer a sharper contrast to the nature of college fads back in Columbia, South Carolina. Fashion trends in the Palmetto state are much more safe, careful, clean-cut and often preppy- as perfectly exemplified by the existence of a Ralph Lauren shop in the University of South Carolina’s student union, a sharp contrast against LUU’s in-house charity shop.

To any valiant South Carolinian hipsters out there: I know you exist, but you must know that to the observances of a foreign visitor, the majority outnumbers you remarkably.

As my year abroad progressed, I realised it wasn’t that the majority of students in South Carolina were simply unafraid of conformity, but that wearing similar items of clothing from the campus sports shop was a deliberate statement of solidarity: a pledge of loyalty to their beloved football team, their university, and their community.

If dressing alike in Garnet and Black is a statement of solidarity in South Carolina, dressing ‘edgy’ in Leeds is West Yorkshire’s irresistible fashion spin-off.

Except- and it’s a drastic exception- the edgy fashion phenomenon appears to make a statement of nonconformity, individuality and distinction rather than unanimity and team spirit, like our friends across the Atlantic.

The ultimate irony of the edgy fad is that so many people have jumped on the bandwagon that some are daring to tout it as ‘mainstream’. The effortless, alternative look that once began as a coveted trend only for those who knew its dark secrets, is coming full circle to create a sea of students treading through campus in swathes of chokers and a sea of oversized denim jackets.

Surely, then- merely by innocent implication- mustn’t mainstream folk like me, who have been ignorant of the edgy fad from the outset, now be considered as truly edgy, wrapped in our block colour New Look cardigans and carrying our trusty River Island Handbags?

Edginess has quickly become an inescapable, polarising identity model. If I happen to like a vintage jumper or go to Flux, all of a sudden I’m accused of trying to imitate the over-saturated fad, whereas maybe, I rather plainly just like that jumper and I’d prefer to join my friends at Flux rather than sit at home on the sofa, agonising over the latent implications of my lifestyle choices amid a headache of conflated edgy-mainstream confusion.

In the diverse society we live in, there are millions of ways to stand out from the crowd. Perhaps the edgy look does have individualistic intentions, but from the outside, it looks as if the outcome has created exactly the conventional, popular and common clothing phenomenon it set out to escape. The edgy innovators that began the trend, now scratching their half-shaved heads in despair, are probably better off moving to Columbia, South Carolina- a hipster’s utopia- where the fashion majority and minority remain strictly separate.

Tags: 21st century, America, charity shop, edgy, edgy girl Leeds, fad, Fashion, Flux, Leeds, modern, second-hand, Student, study abroad, trend, University, vintage

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Categories Culture & lifestyle, Student Life In Leeds

Top 5 moments my study abroad year made me a stronger person

26 Oct

There are times in life that push you beyond your comfort zone. Those are moments that cross a line you’ve never stepped over before, the ones that break new and unfamiliar ground. While at the time you might feel overwhelmed, confused or that you’ll never see the light at the end of the tunnel, eventually you’ll cross the Rubicon and look over your shoulder at all the hurdles you’ve overcome.

It’s those defining moments in life that have made me a richer, stronger and more accomplished individual and I’ve never gone through more of them than during my study abroad year in South Carolina.

Here are the top five moments that my study abroad year made me a stronger person:

Day one: saying goodbye

Saying goodbye to my boyfriend, my family and my friends before I departed for South Carolina was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Not only was I nervous about the prospect of flying to the USA alone and having to make a completely new life for myself, but I was terrified by the possibility that my trans-Atlantic absence would cause my cherished relationships to grow apart.

If that momentous plunge into the unknown wasn’t enough to make my knees buckle at the airport, arriving in Columbia without any of my suitcases added an unwelcome logistical nightmare to my long-haul emotional exhaustion.

Battling against the worst case of the flu I’ve ever had

Two days before my new friends and I were set to depart for a weekend trip to Asheville, North Carolina, I woke up with a debilitating case of the flu. It turned out to be the worst case I’ve ever had to date—my body ached, my eyes were stinging, my head was searing and then ice cold and I was waking up shuddering and covered in sweat in the middle of the night.

The only time I left the flat was to traipse through South Carolina’s first batch of snowfall in decades to visit the doctors. When I got there, I had to stick a swab up my nostrils and pay $50 for Tamiflu, which turned out to make me vomit. Needless to say, I never made it to Asheville.

Post-Christmas homesickness

While I didn’t experience much homesickness during my first semester, when I returned to South Carolina after a brief Christmas in England, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was looking at my American surroundings with a British cultural appetite, just wishing I could curl up in a pub drinking mulled wine and eating mince pies with my loved ones at home.

No matter how incredible South Carolina was, I was still yearning for British home comforts and familiarity.

Contracting gastroenteritis in the Arizona desert

At the end of my study abroad year I decided to take a group tour through California, Arizona and Nevada with a group of 12 people I’d never met. By day three I contracted gastroenteritis, a common bug that causes the stomach and intestines to become inflamed. Anyone who has battled through it will have spent at least 24 hours projectile vomiting and running to the bathroom to cope with severe diarrhoea.

Lucky for me, I contracted the notorious bug in the middle of a six-hour drive through the Arizona desert. No gas stations, no bathrooms, just a single road ahead surrounded by distant mountains and dust devils dancing along the horizon. We spent the afternoon stopping and starting the minivan as I launched myself out of the door to vomit on yet another helpless Joshua tree.

Having my laptop stolen in LA

When I returned to LA on the last day of my trip around the West Coast, raring to Skype home and tell my family and friends about all of my trekking tales, I came back to our hotel to discover that my laptop had been stolen.

While my new friends spent their last evening together exploring Hollywood and indulging in all-American food at the Hard Rock Café, I spent my night getting crime reference numbers at the LAPD station and calling home to try and find my laptop receipt.
While looking back down the road can be a painful trip down memory lane, revisiting these moments fills me with an immense sense of pride and gratitude. If it weren’t for my year in the States, I wouldn’t have learned that, despite everything, I have the inner strength and resolve to carry on when life gets tough.

These are the defining moments I talk about in job interviews. When an employer says “tell me about a time in your life when you had to use initiative,” I now have a bank of memories and experiences to draw from to demonstrate my energy, resilience and independence.

Above all else—isn’t that what studying abroad is all about?

This article has also been published by The News Hub and Verge Magazine

Tags: Abroad, America, American, Arizona, challenge, Exchange, life, South Carolina, stronger, struggle, Student, test, travel

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Categories Student Life in South Carolina, Travel

What American freedom means to me

4 Jul

American freedom symbolises different things for different people. While the core principles of American Independence date back to 4^th July 1776, people all over the world will have a different story to tell about what it means to be in the land of the free. As a British exchange student who spent my last year in South Carolina, I look back on my time abroad as one of the most carefree and joyful years of my life. As I sit in my computer chair sipping a cup of tea (pardon the positively dreadful stereotype) I reflect upon all the times I took American freedom for granted. In the red, white and blue spirit of Independence Day, here’s a Brits-eye view of what American freedom means to me.

American freedom makes dreams come true.

It’s dreaming about what it meant To Have A Dream.

It’s dreaming about what the New York skyline looks like from 86 floors high.

It’s dreaming that you’re Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party picketing the White House for female suffrage.

It’s dreaming about what frat parties are really like.

It’s dreaming about the golden California coastline.

It’s dreaming about the greats from past and present.

American freedom creates opportunity.

It’s learning how to rock-climb in Alabama.

It’s waking up in the morning and seeing your columns in the newspaper.

It’s setting up a volleyball team with a group of internationals.

It’s giving presentations about England in an American middle school.

It’s becoming South Carolina’s best student columnist 2013.

American freedom is variation.

It’s travelling through four states in 2 weeks.

It’s having friends from all over the world, from all walks of life.

It’s being friends with people who are nothing like you.

It’s meeting a new person every day.

It’s learning that doing things a little differently is okay.

American freedom is team spirit.

It’s a cheerleading squad seeing it through to the end.

It’s stars and stripes on every corner.

It’s 80,000 people rooting for the same team.

It’s a marching band 340 musicians strong.

It’s standing on your feet for 4 hours straight.

American freedom is hospitality.

It’s going to seminars at your tutor’s house.

It’s going to an American home for Thanksgiving.

It’s staying with American friends for a week.

It’s feeling at home in every state.

It’s being accepted for who I am.

Tags: 1776, 4th July, America, blog, celebration, Declaration of Independence, democracy, dream, Elvis Presley, England, Exchange, freedom, friendship, Independence Day, life, Martin Luther King, people, states, Student, study abroad, travel

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Categories Seasonal, Student Life in South Carolina, Travel

Top ten things international students must see and do at the University of South Carolina

20 Jun

Having recently returned from my year abroad at the University of South Carolina, I’ve been reflecting upon all the things that made it such a mind-blowing year. There are ten particular things I’m so grateful I did while I was in SC, and they are the experiences that are unique to South Carolina, to Columbia, and to having the unimaginable privilege of being a student at USC. Without further introduction…let’s go cocks.

10) Scarowinds

When Halloween came around in October, I was pretty psyched for an all-American scare-fest. I assumed that I’d probably end up going to a stereotypical house party in a half-impressive fancy dress costume, just like the movies. Instead, I ventured out to ‘Carowinds’, the gargantuan amusement park on the border between North and South Carolina. Every Halloween, the park gets radically transformed into ‘Scarowinds’, complete with bone-chilling haunted houses and zombies crawling all over the grounds. It was the perfect way to get out of Columbia and do something different for Halloween while embracing the all-American passion for the 31^st.

9) Go to a party in a pick-up truck

Unlike England, where pick-up trucks are as common as a Clemson fan in Russell House, in SC you can ride in the back of a pick-up truck as long as you’re 15 years old. The first time I did, I giggled so much I may as well have been 15. The wind was rushing through my hair, the stars were out and I remember thinking- ‘How have I got here?’ Having such a crazy, outlandish and quintessentially Southern experience made me realise how distant the cultural norms of England were from my new Appalachian adventure.

8) See some live music at the Red Door Tavern

Red Door Tavern is cosy bar and live music venue just across the river, a short drive away from campus. Many upcoming singers, songwriters, rappers, comedians and musicians play at the venue that you can enjoy for a small cover charge. It’s the perfect way to let off steam in the evening and a great alternative to another night in Five Points, if you’re just not feeling up to those $5 fishbowls.

7) Thrift shopping

The Summer that I packed for my study abroad year was the summer that Macklemore’s ‘Thrift Shop’ was blasting on radio stations everywhere. After hearing all about the $1 bargains awaiting my beady eyes across the ocean, I arrived and was far from disappointed. There are 2-3 Goodwill stores in Columbia, as well as a number of ‘His House’ stores for those of you that are willing to undergo a more challenging- and rewarding- hunt for those vintage steals.

6) Go to the South Carolina State Fair

The South Carolina State Fair rocks up to the grounds outside Williams-Brice stadium for ten days every October. It hosts a feast of local delights, from fairground rides and stalls to zoo animals and deep-fried cookie dough. Just one month into your study abroad experience, it’s the ideal way to get your new group of friends together and do something different.

5) Sorority bid day

Sorority bid day, colloquially known as ‘the running of the pigs’, is the ceremonious occasion whereby female students at USC find out if they’ve been accepted to their chosen sorority. As sorority life is mostly particular to the states, and larger than life itself in the South, the grandiose events of bid day are a must-see for exchange students freshly exposed to the phenomenon.

4) Visit a plantation

Coming to South Carolina without seeing an old slave plantation would be like going to Washington DC without seeing the Whitehouse. Plantation grounds are an enormous part of the state’s dark history of confederacy, slavery and civil war. I went to Drayton Hall and learned much about the mansion’s egregious past, as well as spotting some turtles, herons, crabs, frogs and eagles in the luscious grounds.

3) Outdoor Rec

Outdoor Recreation, affectionately known around USC as ‘ORec’, provides USC students with the opportunity to rent camping and sports equipment and go on adventure trips with qualified and experienced trip leaders. It’s a great way to see your host country and it’s dirt-cheap. I went on a five-day Outdoor Rec trip over Fall Break and it cost me $100 (£58)- everything included. It’s thanks to ORec that I canoed down the Congaree river, learned how to rock-climb in Alabama, bouldered my way across South Carolina’s stunning rock faces, petted wild ponies in Virginia’s Grayson Highlands and tried my first helping of s’mores under the Georgia stars.

2) Visit Charleston

If you ever need a weekend away from campus, go to Charleston. A mix between Hellenic architecture, swing-seat Southern antiquity and golden sunshine, Charleston makes for the perfect sightseeing blend. It is packed full of museums and historic houses, battleground sights, quaint restaurants and cafes, luscious beaches, palm trees, horse-drawn carriages, ghost tours, market stalls, fresh seafood, a fantastic choice of shops and more vintage bikes than you’ve ever seen before. With so much to see and do, you’ll be planning your next trip out there before you’ve even left.

1) Watch the Gamecocks at Williams-Brice stadium

American football. It occupies a huge space in the hearts of many Americans. But in the hearts of Southern Americans? That’s a different kind of love altogether. Watching the Gamecocks play at Williams-Brice, a stadium boasting a seating capacity of 80,250, blew my mind time and time again. The entire spectacle is a grandiose expression of American team spirit and South Carolinian pride, through cheerleading displays, brass band performances, crowd chants, video montages and firework displays after every touchdown. Whatever you make of American football, the extravagant nature of the entire event renders a visit to the Gamecock’s nest truly unmissable.

Tags: alabama, America, bid day, bouldering, Charleston, Columbia, England, experience, friends, Gamecocks, georgia, international, Leeds, plantation, rock-climbing, Sorority, south, state fair, Student, study abroad, thrift shopping, travel, university of South Carolina, USC, virginia, williams-brice

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Categories Listicles, Student Life in South Carolina, Travel

The ultimate to-do list for outgoing study abroad students

14 Jun

When I found out I’d been accepted to study at the University of South Carolina, all I wanted to do was find out about all the crazy, diverse and eye-opening opportunities I’d be able to get my hands on once I arrived. But standing in the way of all that excitement was a whirlwind of stress, in the form of visa requirements, bank transfers, phone calls, appointments with the study abroad office, and paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. It’s the first time in my life I’d seriously considered hiring a PA. I just wished I had a comprehensive checklist of all the things I had to do before that nerve-racking departure came creeping up behind me. Without further ado, here’s my attempt to provide exactly that for those of you lucky enough to have the adventure of your lives ahead of you.

Book a visa appointment at your local embassy. If you’re studying abroad in a country that requires a visa, make booking your visa appointment over the summer holidays a top priority as the slots fill up fast. If possible, try and get a morning slot, as it means the waiting times in the embassy are likely to be shorter and backlog free.
Unlock your phone. Go into your local network provider’s shop and request to unlock your handset for a small fee. It means that once you arrive in your host country, you will be able to buy and use a new sim card in your old device without having to fork out for a new phone.
Keep receipts for major items that you’ll be taking abroad. If any of these items get lost, damaged or stolen during your time abroad, you’ll be able to claim for them on your insurance policy without having to worry about finding proof of purchase.
Buy travel and health insurance. At some host universities, you are required to purchase the university insurance that is often expensive (USC’s insurance was over $800 a semester), but in most cases you are eligible to waive the policy and purchase your own. Start this process as soon as possible as it can be paperwork and email-intensive.
Request a copy of your medical and vaccination history from your local doctor’s for a small fee. Most host universities require this in order to fully accept your place abroad. Don’t forget to get all outstanding jabs if required, too.
If your study abroad year is not compulsory, submit your change of degree programme form to your parent school. Once I had been accepted to study abroad, my degree title changed from ‘English and History’ to ‘International English and History’, and my parent school needed to know in order to revise my graduation date.
Notify student finance services that you are studying abroad so that you will have those all-important funds for the next year. With all those weekend trips ahead of you, you’ll need it.
Enrol for modules at your host institution. If your year is on a pass/fail basis, think about trying something new while you have the freedom to do so without being penalized. Humanities students- it looks especially impressive on your CV if you choose to study something related to your host country or new local area.
Let your bank know that you’re going abroad.
If you already haven’t, get internet banking. It makes life a whole lot easier to manage and transfer funds when you’re on the other side of the world.
If you don’t have a credit or debit card that will work free of charge while abroad, get a currency card. You can get these from travel agencies like Thomas Cook, and they allow you to load a temporary card with as much $$$ as you like, to tide you over until you get a bank account in your host institution.
If there is a networking event at your home institution- GO TO IT. I met all of the other Leeds students studying at USC when I went to mine, and we remained friends for the whole year.
Sort out accommodation in your host country. If you are going to be automatically enrolled for housing in university halls, start thinking about whether you’d like to be on campus, and whether you’d like a roommate.
Submit disability and health forms. If you have any major disability or health complications your host institution must know about this ASAP.
Find out about student counseling services at your host institution. Should anything untoward happen, or you receive bad news from home while you’re abroad, you’ll know where to go if you need extra support.
Look into bursaries, scholarships and competitions that offer money for outgoing study abroad students. From the perspective of an ex-study abroad student who has just come home to depleted funds, take my word that you’ll be glad for all the financial help you can get.
Check your passport validity.
Book your outgoing flight. If you can avoid it, don’t book your return flight for the end of the semester or the year. If you do, you’ll be consigned to a definite end date when many of your new friends will be making exciting travel plans. In addition, consider flying over a couple of days earlier than your move-in date and staying in a hotel. This is useful if you’d like some time to recover from jetlag and open a bank account overseas before orientation sessions begin.
Check baggage allowance. If you are going for the year and would like to take two suitcases, an extra one usually costs around £80-£100.
Take your railcard, bus passes, Oyster card and any other travel passes with you. You might need these when travelling home for Christmas, or at the end of the year.
Get to know your study abroad mentor from your host institution over the phone or via email. Getting to know a real person on the other side of the world who is there to help with the transition is an indispensable way to reduce pre-departure anxieties.
Register with your home university. Even though you’re going abroad, you still need to renew your registration for the upcoming year at home.
Pay outstanding library fines. You’ll be depressed enough coming home at the end of the year without having to come home to library debts.
Collect and print evidence of your return home. Many embassies and airport authorities like to see (and require) evidence that you will be returning home at the end of the year. This could be job forms, your registration certificate from university or anything that states you won’t be graduating for another year.
Scan all paperwork and print 2 copies. Leave one set with someone you trust at home, and take the other set with you.
If you are going to America, and like drinking tea, take a box of teabags with you. The strongest tea you’re going to find out there is Twinings, and that’s practically tea-flavoured milkshake.
Download the app ‘1 Second Everyday’ and document your time abroad. Every second will be unforgettable, and you’ll want to re-live the experience when you return home.
Start a blog. It’s a cathartic way to document your study abroad experience and the perfect opportunity to enhance your CV. Blog about your fears, hopes and expectations. Blog about the locals. Blog about sorority life. Blog about culture, art and about people. Blog about blogging if you have to.
Think about what you want from the year. Some people see the year as an opportunity to work as little as possible, and party HARD. Others see it as a chance to radically transform their CVs, integrate within a new culture, enhance global employability, and get involved with extra-curricular life. What will you regret not doing the most?

Tags: 1 Second Everyday, Abroad, America, blog, embassy, England, Leeds, life, list, packing, paperwork, party, South Carolina, Student, study abroad, suitcase, Thomas Cook, travel, visa

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Categories Student Life In Leeds, Student Life in South Carolina, Travel

The top ten things I’ll miss about studying abroad at USC

5 May

As I slumped down onto my hotel bed at midnight on the 13^th August last year, I felt overwhelmed, alone and terrified. The first sights I’d seen of America had been the anonymous insides of Washington Dulles airport and a couple of fast food outlets along the motorway.

That week, I wrote a blog post called, ‘My top ten culture shocks from moving to South Carolina.’ As I discovered America’s social, cultural and political treasures one by one, I narrowed down the ten most outlandish shocks I’d encountered during my first week in Columbia.

Now I have three days left at USC and I’m reflecting on what an incredible year it’s been. Some of the things I’ll miss the most about America are completely unexpected. Some of those initial shocks have come to seem ordinary, and even homely. Some of the things I love the most about America are exactly the things that I disliked at the beginning of my journey, and some of the things I’ll miss the most I knew I’d love from the start. So in the name of circularity, here’s my top ten things that I’ll miss the most about studying abroad at USC.

10) The weather

Unlike England, rain showers in Columbia last a matter of hours at most, rather than a matter of days- or even weeks. The summers are long and hot and the winters are short and mild, and we were even spoiled with four novelty days of snow this year- and four days off ‘school’ to match. I’m going to miss stepping outside of my dorm into the blazing sunshine rather than putting on every layer of clothing I own before climbing the treacherous hill that is Leeds’s Royal Park Road.

9) Free stuff

Free t-shirts. Free beer cozies. Free water bottles. Free sunglasses. Free bags. Free copies of the New York Times. Free vouchers. Free tickets. Free food. USC, you sure know how to win the hearts of us students.

8) Prices

If I’m not already happy enough accumulating all the free stuff I didn’t know I needed, I’m saving even more money by enjoying the sterling to dollar exchange rate. Bottles of beer are a dollar (60p), Margaritas at Tios are $2 (£1.20) thrift shop purchases are a dollar, and I bought all the bedding, kitchenware and supplies I needed for the entire year at Wal Mart for $80 (£50). America has completely ruined my perception of value and I’m probably going to return to the UK and complain about how much cheaper everything is in dollars. (sorrynotsorry)

7) Strom

Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center, affectionately known as ‘strom’ by USC students is our gym at university. Not only do I live a minute’s walk away from this beastly fitness complex, but it boasts an outdoor pool, a running track, a climbing wall, a sauna, sand volleyball courts- and it’s FREE.

6) Easy education

When I first arrived at USC I was perplexed by the fact that everyone called it ‘school’. Now that I’ve been here for a year, I’ve realised that the term is pretty appropriate. I have seminars in my tutor’s house with popcorn and soda. We pick our own essay topics and we have exams twice a semester to lighten the load. Exam questions are multiple choice and sometimes require only one word answers. Final exams are held during class time and teachers are often flexible and negotiable about dishing out our grades. Not to dumb down all the hard work I’ve put in while laying by the pool all year- but American university life has been a light, cool breeze.

5) Travel opportunities

When I first discovered that I’d been accepted at USC I was slightly concerned that my destination wasn’t very…cosmopolitan. But it’s actually been an incredible base for travelling elsewhere. Namely, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, New York, Washington DC and very soon I’ll be in Tennessee. Although weekend trips to the Lake District, Brighton and London won’t be quite as crazy, travelling around America so often has given me a new-found desire to explore my own country some more once I return home.

4) Southern Hospitality

If it wasn’t for Southern Hospitality, I may not have recovered from culture shock so quickly. In sharp contrast to the mad, impersonal rush of big cities, Southerners are open, honest and welcoming. Passers-by say ‘Hey, how are you?’, shop staff frequently give discounts and people are always offering car rides. I’ll be sad to trade all of this in for British social stiffness.

3) American enthusiasm

Americans may be louder and more vocal than us Brits, but it’s for a good reason. I’ve never come across a nation of people who are, on the whole, so emphatic and enthusiastic. Some of their hyperbolic statements and cheesy phrases may get on my nerves sometimes, but when you’re in Alabama stuck halfway up a rock wall, having a team of Americans at the bottom screaming, “Girl you GOT it! Keep going! Don’t give up you’re doing super AWESOME!” is just what you need. 2) Being an outsider

It may sound backwards, but being an outsider in a new community for a whole year is so much fun. I’ve been taking pictures of every little thing because it all seems so different and full of discovery, and there is ALWAYS something to do. The small things that seem insignificant to the majority of Americans here have been a huge deal to me- like screaming ‘GO COCKS!’ at the top of my voice at football games, playing cornhole, watching free movies in the student union cinema and choosing every single topping at Yoghut. Then there’s the big things which to me, have blown my mind- like taking a seat at Williams-Brice stadium and taking the elevator to the top floor of the Empire State Building.

1) People

Meeting new people every day has enriched my life more than any other aspect of studying abroad. Chatting to someone is like going on a journey in itself, learning about where they’re from, what they believe and what their story is. Even my professors have been outstanding, mentoring me, looking out for me and helping me settle in way beyond their call of duty. Then there’s the people that I’ve met from the start, my rag-tag group of hilarious, ridiculous, carefree friends from all over the world. We’ve stuck together from the beginning and kept each other sane during the ups and downs of studying abroad. Not only have I got incredible friends from all over America, I’ve got a bunch of British friends who I’ll be seeing back home in England. It just so happens that if there was anything that I wished I could pack in my suitcase and bring back home with me- it would be them. As for the ones who’ll be staying in America- they’re the perfect excuse to come back to the states some time soon.

Tags: America, Columbia, England, Gamecocks, Leeds, people, reflection, Student, study abroad, sunshine, travel, UK, usa, USC, yoghut

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Categories Listicles, Student Life in South Carolina, Travel

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