I have been in Nottingham, UK for almost 2 weeks and so far I have been enjoying my time getting to see the city and country. Nottingham is in central England and is about 2 hours north of London. Nottingham is best known for its Sherwood Forest from Robin Hood and there are a lot of references to him throughout the city.
My first week in Nottingham was spent exploring the city and figuring out public transportation. Public transportation is a very popular way of getting around the city, whereas back home we usually drive everywhere. Here, there are trains, buses, trams, and taxis everywhere. Another alternative is to just walk! Everything in the city is fairly close together and getting around is quite easy.
Classes began this past week and I am noticing many differences between the US and the UK. The structure of classes is very different in England from what I?m used to in the US. For example, there are no homework assignments during the week and no quizzes or exams throughout the semester. Our grade for our courses, or as they call them here, modules, rely on one final at the end of the term. In my case, I have 3 essays and one exam for my 4 modules. Additionally, we have different class styles throughout the week instead of only having lectures. There are seminars and lectures. Seminars are more discussion-based than lectures are. We usually have lectures earlier in the week which are followed by seminars later in the week where we talk about what we learned in our lectures. This structure also causes my class schedule to change week to week because some modules don?t have seminars held every week.
I think that after a couple more weeks I will be able to acclimate and get more immersed in the culture. I am still getting used to my new environment, but I am very excited for my time here and I can?t wait to experience more!
