A New Chapter: Tales of a Mancunian Lost in the City of Angels

By David Sustana, University of Southern California, United States

Things have been crazy since I last wrote.

Walking down the streets of Downtown Los Angeles at night.

First of all, if you’ve been keeping up with the blog, then you’d probably know that I was scheduled to go on a trip with the SC Outfitters society to California’s famous Salton Sea. Unfortunately, I don’t have any updates or pictures to share of that because it was cancelled at the last minute. However, it is being rescheduled for a future date, so stay tuned and hopefully I will have more to share about that coming up!

But besides that, things have been busy. I got to celebrate a very American Thanksgiving dinner with my roommates and others in my hall, courtesy of the wonderful people at USC Student Life. Have you ever had cranberry relish? There are a million better reasons to go abroad to the States, but this is still a good one.

I then took the opportunity over the Thanksgiving recess to do some solo travel to Miami, Florida (quite surreal for a lifelong video game fan like me after seeing the trailer for the new Grand Theft Auto release set in Miami). Take a look at the scenes!

The ports of Miami at night … so many cruise ships.

Imagine this being your view every night.

Also, I never realised how many skyscrapers Miami has.

It’s a great city but hard to get around. And the heat… It’s really, really bad, and a stark departure from the cool breeziness of Los Angeles. And then you have the humidity on top of that, really compounding the heat. Bring a fan, plenty of bottled water, and sunscreen if you decide to visit (you should!).

When I came back, the last nine days flew by, and before I knew it, I was revising for exams. And now that they’re over, I think I have the credentials to offer three pieces of advice for you … but as always, this is purely anecdotal and totally depends on the modules you elect to take, and I am making comparisons between these modules and the modules I’ve taken at the University of Manchester. Both have been/may be different experiences for you.

First, get used to multiple-choice exams. They’re exceedingly common in the States. It’s a very different approach to exams and requires a different skillset to achieve good marks. There is much less writing (during exams (depends on module!)), and if there is any, the prompts are much more direct and explicit compared to what you’ll see during written exams at AMBS, for example. That may sound enticing, but it also means that there is way less freedom to cherrypick which portions of the module that you want to demonstrate your understanding of; essentially, if you didn’t revise those two slides or that one single reading, well, that’s it. Try again next time.

There are many types of multiple-choice questions (the most hated being the “Choose all that apply” category), so it’s definitely in your interest to research and practise some tips and tricks before you land at USC.

Second, understand what the first tip entails. As I mentioned, due to the nature of the exams here (for both multiple choice and written portions), the focus is much narrower and more specific for each question, and they’ll come at you in rapid-fire format (expect around 50 questions for a one-hour exam). Again, this means that you need to know every little detail from the class session materials.

Essentially, it comes down to the difference in emphasizing depth versus scope. In my experience, in non-maths-based modules at AMBS, the focus is on your ability to develop and execute a discussion of a selection of at least an entire week’s worth of learning, meaning it’s more important to really understand the theory, but that details and one-liners can be glanced at more quickly if they’re not critical to the main theory/discussion.

Well, if that is your expectation during your year abroad, scratch it and get used to memorizing every centrimetre of the class session materials. Any one sentence can be it’s own dedicated question (or even multiple), so you need to prepare different revising strategies: flashcards, repetition, and handwriting notes (more effective for memorization). Reading and rereading over and over again. You need to know those slides like they’re a map of your hometown. Every sentence, every diagram, and every speaker’s note counts.

Third and finally, pay attention during class sessions! Due to the more conversational/less lecture-ish nature of American university education, professors often reveal multiple hints about the questions on the exam (or sometimes even entire questions themselves) throughout the term. The astute student can often walk into exams already knowing roughly 5-10% of the questions (remember, that’s like 5 questions for most exams!).

Please don’t be put off or overwhelmed by the advice. It’s not as hard as it seems, and honestly, one of my favorite parts of my time at USC has come to be the way the modules are structured and run (this is an American thing though; it’s not exclusively an approach of USC).

Anyways, my exams are done (🎉) and I’m currently doing some tidying in anticipation of the winter recess! My plans are to go to either Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, or Sea World (haven’t decided yet). But wherever I end up, it will be an exciting journey and another great chance to explore the States (thankfully, airfare from California seems to be relatively cheap compared to the other states).

There is a downside, however, to the close of fall term: I have to say goodbye to my roommates since I’m the only one out of the four of us that is staying for a full-year exchange. They easily became my favourite people at USC and the American roommate adventure is nothing like you’ll ever experience in the UK with flatmates.

Our final flat dinner was at this amazing restaurant in Downtown called Joey DTLA. The prices were fair, the service was great, and the ample activities in the surrounding area meant there was plenty to do after dinner too. I highly recommend the fish tacos.

Really nice vibes at Joey DTLA, and it wasn’t too busy even for a Sunday night.

This was my meal, and I’ll probably get it again if I go back. The portions were bigger than they look in the photo.

And one of the best parts of the restaurant was what was around it; there was so much to do.

So while I’m trying to stay positive and appreciate both the incredible memories of the past and fantastic opportunities in the future that I am afforded as a full-year exchange student, the introspective nature of today’s blog post is definitely exacerbating the end-of-term sentimental emotions that I’ve already been dealing with.

You know that feeling when you’re in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people and an unfamiliar culture? That kind of one-part-fear, one-part-butterflies, one-part-wonder feeling and how it slowly ebbs away over time to leave confidence and command over yourself and how you choose to live your life?

Well, I’ve reached that point, and it’s bittersweet. So yes, I’m putting a “The End” at the bottom of Part One, but there are 142 blank pages waiting to be written in Part Two. And I feel like I have control and ownership of my experience now, and that will empower me to do things and take chances that I wasn’t able to in Part One.

So, in the words of Dr. Seuss, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened’.