Howdy! I am Lila Leonard an accounting major on the Scotland Sustainable Entrepreneurship Program. Sustainability in Europe, much less Scotland, is very different from what people are used to in College Station. That is a difference I could have predicted before my program but there were many more that I noticed once I actually got here. As someone who has never left the country before I was surprised by the history that these places have. In Glasgow specifically, there is a mix of history and modernity within the architecture. This is not the same for all of the places we?ve visited like Edinburgh has a defined old and new town. These different layouts of the cities lead to different interpretations of how the city feels. In Glasgow, it feels more like an American city with a little bit more historical architecture, while in Edinburgh it felt like a different place entirely. Even though there is so much less physical space between the cities they feel very different, I think I was expecting the physical proximity and shared history to create cities that felt more similar than the cities in the US.
I hope that this different environment will improve my understanding of the world as a whole away from America. I?ve already heard so many different accents and interacted with people from a wide range of places, which I?ve never really experienced in Dallas or College Station. I know that their view of the environment and sustainability will also change the way I see the world and the way we treat waste as people and Americans. One of the biggest sustainability things I noticed was the fact that stores charge for bags, which some American cities do. Some of the stores don’t even offer a bag and you end up having to balance everything in your arms because you forgot to ask. I know there are more than just that like the walkable city layouts, so less driving, and more types of transportation that probably leave less of a carbon footprint than everyone driving everywhere. I just want to understand as many options as possible to see the solutions to this problem as completely as possible.
