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Academic Experience and First Semester at UMass Amherst
By Lucas Smith (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA) With second semester starting imminently, I am now half way through my placement here at the University of Massachusetts. This semester has gone very fast, as I expected it to. Still, I think I have managed to cram in as many activities and experiences as possible. Already it has become a year that I will never forget. Moving into my second semester here I will now be more accustomed to the academic aspect of my placement. While we were all told in our pre-departure meetings about how teaching vastly varies across the globe and from institution to institution, the reality really only…
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Pre-Departure to Amherst
By James Eyke (The University of Massachusetts at Amherst). After a long summer, all the preparation and sorting out for travelling to America is about to come into effect. Visa in hand, I will soon be stepping off the plane into a completely new environment full of opportunities and heading to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Naturally, one starts feeling very nervous around this time. Having not travelled as far as Northern Spain in the past 15 years, thousands of miles across the ocean is quite a daunting task. The thing I am most apprehensive about with regards to my journey however, has to be getting from Boston International Airport to…
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The End… Almost
By Hamish Russell (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA). Now that final exams at UMass Amherst are over, I thought I’d fill you in the goings on of the last few weeks. First up was the UMass Spring Concert, which featured the Goo Goo Dolls as the headline act – they were seriously good, despite it being almost unbearably hot and cramped in the Mullins Centre’s standing area. The weekend after the concert, I headed over to Boston to pay a visit to Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, where I was given a bigger event than I was expecting… The game happened to feature a memorial…
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Getting started in the USA
By Hamish Russell (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA). Before I even left the UK I ran into some travelling difficulties… I knew I might have a troublesome experience at Heathrow when my passport was scanned at the check-in desk, only for the desk to erupt with flashing red lights. It turned out that the US State Department had put me on their high-security list to make sure that I didn’t have anything in my bags (I didn’t) to suggest I was planning on violating the terms of my J-1 visa – so be careful when packing would be my advice to any future visa holders. New York was brilliant, as…
A study abroad journal by students, for students.
