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Pre-departure Pep Talk
From where I am now, if I could give my pre-departure self a few words of encouragement and reassurance, they would go something like this… Everyone has an American Dream.
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Post-semester travelling
Updating y'all on my finals, travels, and internship.
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Our Three Winners
Stephen Fulham | The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA It had been a while since I’d last blogged, so I used my previous one to post on what I’d been up to. I deliberately didn’t mention the tragic events of February 10: the shooting of three students in Chapel Hill. It would’ve felt unnatural to cover this in passing or alongside other stuff that I’d been up to. I felt, and to an extent do still feel, like I needed more time to reflect. As I’m typing this I realise that I’ll be unable to find the impossible and craft words which could make sense of this.…
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Post Spring Break
Stephen Fulham | The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA I realised it’d been a while since I last wrote one of these just before Spring Break, but couldn’t find the time to type one during travelling, and then in the fortnight since I’ve got back I’ve had a lot of deadlines. In short: I’ve been really busy in the past few months. I mentioned the academic differences between UNC and Manchester in my previous blog. Since then, the workload has increased and it sort of feels like the same amount of work (in terms of quantity) as sixth form because every single class session requires readings and…
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Predeparture Thoughts Before NCSU
By Erdoo Yongo (North Carolina State University, USA) It is the morning before I leave for the US and I am feeling a mixture of emotions – on one hand I am feeling really happy and excited for the adventure ahead, but on the other hand I am feeling quite sad because it obviously difficult to say goodbye to family for such a long time. It is really strange because I honestly do not understand how quickly I got to this moment – about to leave to study abroad for five months. The University of Manchester application process is still fresh in my mind – I do not know whether…
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Impressions on Returning Back to Manchester
By Christopher Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, USA) So I’ve been back at Manchester for nearly four months now and I’m still not entirely sure if I’m ever actually going to be totally used to it after my time in the USA. Whilst when in the USA, I found there were so many things I would like to transfer from England to the USA. In the classroom it is completely the opposite, and there are so many aspects of American university that I would like to see brought into the UK university system and teaching methods. Going back to straight lectures, especially two hour ones, has probably been the biggest struggle,…
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Belated Reflections About A Great Year
Firstly I am very sorry about the lateness of this post. I have only recently returned to England and I thought I would (belatedly) share some reflections about my period abroad. I was really supposed to do this around the time I was saying goodbye to NC State but I didn’t for a few reasons. Firstly this would have clashed with exams, goodbyes, last minute plans and packing. All of which at the time are excellent forms or procrastination. Then once I had said goodbye to North Carolina and begun a few months of travelling I was frankly just extremely busy. But finally, and probably the closest to being the…
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Trips, Travels and Adventures!
By Christopher Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). So having just returned from that holiday made famous in numerous American TV shows and films: Spring Break! Now seemed like a good time to tell y’all about some of the trips I have been luckily enough to go on during my time here. What follows are the much abbreviated highlights. Sorry for skimming over some things but otherwise you would be confronted with an almighty essay. Hopefully this gives you a brief taste though. Fall Break: This was a great little holiday roughly half way through the first semester here which I guess equates to the NCSU version…
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School Life
By Chris Tenant-Flowers (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). Hello again! firstly let me apologise for my absence from this blog. I really didn’t believe it had been as long as it had been since I posted but time is really, really flying by this year. I do plan to be able to post a few more of these in the coming weeks as I have a brief gap in my workload it seems (fingers crossed). With that in mind it seems like a good time to perhaps talk about some of the differences in school life that I have experienced over here. This is after all an…
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First, Second and Third Impressions
By Hanan L’Estrange-Snowden (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA). So I have been here for a little while now, almost 2 months in fact! And I have done so much! I’ve been to Washington, Atlanta, the beach, watched American football, baseball, basketball, even soccer games, visited state fairs, written midterms, submitted papers, even taken the odd pop quiz, moved house, gained a room mate and eaten way too much food! I have to say I finally feel like I have settled in. When I first arrived, I really felt as if I wouldn’t fit it in but now I really don’t want to leave. I’m even annoyed that…
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Go Wolfpack
By Chris Tenant-Flowers. Ok, so I’ve been here In Raleigh North Carolina for about two weeks now so here are some of my first impressions: I think the most obvious thing for me to mention is the whole school spirit thing. I was told to expect this but it has still caught me off guard. People love their school and take great pride in going there and it is no different here at NC State. I’m not saying we in Manchester or England generally don’t take pride in our universities but not like here. You may see the odd UoM hoodie in Manchester but here genuinely one in every 6…
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Raleigh
By Matt Briggs (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA). Well, I’ve just realised I really didn’t pack very well for Raleigh. I brought jeans and long sleeve shirts as well as jackets and jumpers. I’ts been about 34 degrees everyday! It’s so hot. Other than the fact that I’ve been overheating all the time and getting sun-burnt and looking like a Brit on holiday, it’s been good. I’ve had my first set of classes now and it feels a bit more like school (which is nice). You get sent homework every class and it needs to be in the next week. I’m just getting used to doing work…
A study abroad journal by students, for students.
