Fleeting Thoughts on an Overcast Afternoon...
Coming to London for studies, I’m often struck, even if sub-consciously, by the differences between UCL and NUS, where I completed my first degree. Unlike some others I know, I didn’t get the privilege of an overseas education then. Is this, in a way, my own opportunity to experience what it feels like to be studying away from home, in an international environment?
It’s difficult to make a good comparison. I was much younger then. I’m the same person now, but things have changed much since. Circumstances have changed. I don’t know how I would have been, if I were here for three or four years of undergraduate studies. I guess it doesn’t really matter now. Let’s leave it at that.
It is rather invigourating to mix with such a wide circle of people here. In NUS, the situation was much more provincial, although I’m sure they’ve since enlarged their intake of foreign students. I welcome that entirely. It certainly helps to lift local students beyond any parochial worldview they might have.
The courses offered at my school also reflect a particular academic perspective reflective of Europe and the UK. There are master’s level programmes on Human Rights and on Democracy and Democratization. I can’t imagine NUS ever putting forward such courses.
Being here, I’ve also had a chance to look back at my other time living away from home. It’s a surreal feeling. My three years in Washington seem like another world entirely. I was in a different time, a different place, a different role, with different people and different priorities. Was I really there?
But now, I’m in London, student for a year, enjoying myself so far, yet conscious that this is yet another fleeting stage in a long journey that will often be marked as much by joy as by adversity. Things around us change, and the only constant we can hold onto, amidst the tumult and turmoil, is ourselves.
It’s difficult to make a good comparison. I was much younger then. I’m the same person now, but things have changed much since. Circumstances have changed. I don’t know how I would have been, if I were here for three or four years of undergraduate studies. I guess it doesn’t really matter now. Let’s leave it at that.
It is rather invigourating to mix with such a wide circle of people here. In NUS, the situation was much more provincial, although I’m sure they’ve since enlarged their intake of foreign students. I welcome that entirely. It certainly helps to lift local students beyond any parochial worldview they might have.
The courses offered at my school also reflect a particular academic perspective reflective of Europe and the UK. There are master’s level programmes on Human Rights and on Democracy and Democratization. I can’t imagine NUS ever putting forward such courses.
Being here, I’ve also had a chance to look back at my other time living away from home. It’s a surreal feeling. My three years in Washington seem like another world entirely. I was in a different time, a different place, a different role, with different people and different priorities. Was I really there?
But now, I’m in London, student for a year, enjoying myself so far, yet conscious that this is yet another fleeting stage in a long journey that will often be marked as much by joy as by adversity. Things around us change, and the only constant we can hold onto, amidst the tumult and turmoil, is ourselves.
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