Cambridge Week 7 – Studying Abroad in General, and Personal Experience

The rigor of the classes I took wasn’t an issue in and of itself, I probably spend a pretty similar amount of time and effort on classes during the semester at Northeastern, but this makes it challenging to balance the internal and external pressures to do ‘interesting’ stuff while abroad. Don’t get me wrong, these classes were just as much work as I get credit for them (which was kind of the point of doing a study abroad), but it was a challenge to balance requirements of my fellowship and classes, wanting to explore Europe, and answering questions from family who were interested in what my plans were, lead to a lot of challenges with  time management. It was disappointing to have all these plans going in and watch them fall apart because I had to focus most of my time on academics – again, that isn’t a failure of the program, rather a misjudgement on my part. I originally had plans for every weekend, which ended up being pretty hard to accomplish with the pressure from classes.

This leads me to my major point of advice for anyone doing this program (or a similar one) – I didn’t know a lot people there were taking these classes pass/fail until the very end of the program. This really explained a lot in hindsight – I was really intimidated talking to people about how much they traveled – and just generally did – outside of classes, and frequently felt inadequate because of it. Sure, a lot of that might stem from insecurities, but it generally made me feel as if I was disproportionately struggling in these classes because I spent most of my time on academics. It warrants repeating – a LOT of people are taking these classes pass/fail. Some needed context is the grading scale used – what might be considered failing for some classes I’ve taken at Northeastern is a passing grade at Cambridge. For the people that took their classes pass/fail, or generally not for credit, I absolutely don’t blame them for putting less emphasis on classes and spending time travelling and being a tourist. I definitely would’ve done the same. When this was brought up to one of my professors towards the end of the program, he was kind of shocked when me and the other people from Northeastern said we were taking the class for credit.

So, a lot of my struggle from this program might’ve just been because of my ego – and I’m even hesitant to mention this struggle because it can definitely come off as “boo hoo, I might get a B” if written in the wrong tone. But, if you’re doing a study abroad, these regrets would definitely be my main takeaway. Even if you’re taking the classes for credit like I am, at least consider that a C is just as passing as an A.

As another reflection, mostly just about the idea of studying abroad during my first summer (especially at Northeastern), I wish I had put more thought into enjoying what is probably going to be my last full summer. Especially during the gap between this study abroad and going back to classes, it does feel like I’ve squandered what little

I felt it was important to include that diatribe, but I’ll move on to describing some fun things that just didn’t fit into a full themed blog post.

Travel

Edinburgh

I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival on my second weekend – I considered making a blog post just for this it was so fun! I bought tickets specifically for Matt Parker, a stand-up comedian/mathematician who I love. In fact, he has a book come out recently that’s only available in a physical copy in the UK which was a nice coincidence – I made sure to have him sign it! This is the second time I’ve seen him in person, this first in the fall semester at Harvard where he gave a talk that about math errors – which eventually became the topic of his book.

Matt Parker at Harvard

I also saw a couple other comedy shows that were free and going on at the time. Edinburgh was mostly just an exercise in public transit in the UK, I really only ended up spending about 3 hours in the city before heading back.

Cardiff

I took the train into Cardiff on a whim and really enjoyed it – I honestly have no idea what a tourist would want to see in Cardiff so I just kind of mumbled around the city for a couple hours. I really enjoyed it, it’s a city I was never really recommended to see but I ended up loving it. My phone was pretty low on battery at dusk so I don’t have any nice pictures to share.

London

I already briefly mentioned my trips into London, but I ended up going to London more and more as the program went on, maybe about fifteen times in total. I really loved London, I could see myself living there. It seems like the perfect blend of Boston and New York City.

Again, another view from Tate Modern

Going into London the first time being unfamiliar with the public transit, I planned a ridiculous amount of time just in case something went wrong or I got lost. By the end of the program if I had more than three hours free I’d jump at the opportunity to go into London.

Ely

A really small town just north of Cambridge, really quaint with a lot of similar Gothic architecture to Cambridge. Maybe it was just being desensitized by sing King’s Chapel every day, but I wasn’t as floored as I probably should’ve been giving how pretty the city was.

Food

I was pretty frugal about eating out, but the food in Cambridge and London was fantastic. There are so many restaurants in and around the city that I really didn’t even eat at a fraction of what was available.

I of course have to mention Sainsbury’s – as far as I can tell it’s roughly equivalent to 711 – which means I instantly liked it.

London was the true highlight, and I made sure to eat somewhere and eat somewhere new every time I went. For a quick reference, I used Tom Scott and Matt Gray’s Places to eat in London as Bible.