Another amazing week in London!

By:

Melena Appling

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Melena Appling

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Hello! <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> University of North Georgia <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2024 <i>Destination city & country:</i> London, England & Rome, Italy <i>Program provider:</i> CIEE Open Campus <i>Major/minor:</i> AA Communications transitioning into BA Communications with concentration in Public Relations <i>Demographics:</i> Asian/Asian American <i>Future career aspirations:</i> First, I will graduate college obtaining a AA in Communication along with a BA in Communication with a concentration in Public Relations. In the next 5 years, I plan to be a brand manager who is running social media management accounts (social media marketer) for local businesses. I hope that this will pave the way for me to run my own public relations department for a large corporate business in the future. I look forward to working with people and helping them resolve their problems. I enjoy speaking and communicating with others, and I am quite excited for my future! <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> 1Study more about the place that I am studying abroad. Learn about myself and find comfort in independence. I hope to take awesome courses, and learn from a new university!

Melena Appling here! This week classes for my study abroad program came into full swing, and it has been quite the feat shaking off my jetlag. I met all of my professors and navigated learning in a new environment. I am teaching myself to manage my time to complete my assignments so that I may reward myself by having some fun later! My rewards have been to go out and explore the city and travel once I finish doing my work for school. Also, I have been practicing positive money-saving habits by packing my lunch for class and meal planning with my roommate. I have exchanged my money, and using a different currency has been interesting as well. I am starting to truly see the value of money and how value can change around the entire world.

During this week, I walked around Camden Market and bought some souvenirs for my family. There were so many cute shops and markets to find one-of-a-kind pieces by individual sellers, I really appreciate shopping small and supporting smaller businesses. A few of my newfound friends and I went to Buckingham Palace and watched the changing of the guards. There were so many people in the palace gardens watching this event, I found this surprising as it was a Wednesday morning, yet the area was filled with locals and tourists. This shows how significant this event is for London and The Queens’ history. I and many others were eager to see this tradition and watch how important this is for London’s government system.

My study abroad program also hosts events for us to attend, this week we had cream tea at the British Museum. I added milk and sugar to my tea and dressed fancy for the occasion. We then had scones with strawberry jam and cream butter. We walked around The British Museum and saw some really neat artifacts like a piece of the Rosetta Stone and Egyptian sculptures. I was also able to walk through the Science Museum which was cool to see the flight exhibits and the history of technology of London/the BBC. This week was more than abundant in learning experiences and opportunities to engage in college life as a study abroad student.