From American students to Interns in London, the 2013 GLSers have definitely experienced a lot of change this past semester. I know for me, it was a huge change going from Tennessee, which contrary to English popular belief, is not just a bunch of hillbillies drinking whisky on the front porch, to London, England, which really doesn’t have as bad of weather as Americans tend to think. All of this change that I experienced definitely helped me learn a lot; I learned to always make sure to look both ways at least twice before crossing the streets in London just to make sure I didn’t look the wrong way, I learned that if I wanted to blend in with the locals wearing a North Face jacket and Sperry’s might not be the best idea, and I also learned that the not so pleasant looks I got on the tube weren’t anything personal, the next time I rode I just needed to be a little more conscious of how loud I was letting my conversation get.
This past semester was definitely an experience. We practically started out as 27 strangers living together - thankfully, not exactly Real World style-in a country many of us had never visited before and now it feels as if I spent every day with some of my closest friends. It really is entertaining to look back to last semester when all the GLSers hardly knew each other and were secretly all afraid of Fred, oh how studying abroad has changed us.
The first two months in London were fantastic, Statistics and BA were great and so were all of the travelling adventures I went on. I also really enjoyed the real London working experience that I got out of my internship at Maxus. Maxus is an international media planning agency with many major clients such as Fiat, which was the team I worked with. My first week at Maxus was definitely chaotic because it was full of jumping on to projects hoping I wouldn’t mess anything up too much while also trying to get to know everyone I worked with. I couldn’t have asked for a more welcoming company, everyone was so nice to me and made me feel as if I had been there for months. I also really enjoyed all of the projects I was able to help with. All of the projects I worked on were very eye opening and helped me understand so much more about the media world than I ever thought I would know. Maxus made me love the media world; the people are fun, the work is interesting, and the perks aren’t too bad either!
This semester was all I could have asked for and more. Dr. Mee and Lane were wonderful, I made 26 new best friends and I had the experience of a lifetime. My only regret – I wasn’t there for the wedding.
