When traveling to another country there are many differences in ways of life that yu may not normally notice. For my last semester as an undergraduate I have decided to study abroad in Plymouth, England and plan to stay here until the beginning of June. In my first week here there are significant differences in the ways of life as opposed to America.
First of all, I am staying in a dorm on campus. A difference between on-campus dorms here versus the United States is that there is more privacy and accommodations. To start, I have my own sink in my room, which has separate faucets for the hot and cold water. This is to help a possible influx of people needing the bathroom at once. Another significant difference is that all dorms give students their own room so there are no options where you have to share a room such as in the South Complex housing at ISU.
I currently have eight other roommates, which sounds like a lot, but we are split up between two floors and each floor gets their own bathroom and shower room. The only thing we all share is the kitchen.
When it comes to the kitchen, we have a full stove and oven that we may use at any time. We also have multiple freezers and fridges to better manage food storage between us. A downside is that we do not have a shared living space therefore when we talk we just sit at the kitchen table.
In these shared spaces we are also not responsible for certain cleaning tasks. Instead, the university has cleaning employees that come in everyday and take out the trash and make sure everything is somewhat clean and then once a week a cleaning employee will do a deeper clean. We are still responsible for our own rooms, but that was something I found interesting.
Moving on, general living outside of the dorms is also fascinating. Everything a student, or anybody living in the area needs, is right within walking distance. There is a significantly sized shopping center known as Drake Circus that holds affordable clothes stores such as Primark, a store for bathroom supplies equipped with a pharmacy, and a full grocery store along with so many other stores within a ten minute walk.
Something that I learned is if you plan to go shopping make sure you bring your own bags and a backpack because they charge you a small fee for a bag. Also try not to buy everything at once because by the time you have a whole bunch of groceries in those bags you have to carry them back to your dorm, which can be quite the task if you’re alone. As I was shopping I saw that it was quite common for people to have small carts on wheels that zipped up to make carrying everything much easier. Also getting an early start is also wise because a lot of the shops here close around 5-7PM. During my first shopping experience here I was ID’d at the check out for having metal silverware that included knives; even though they were only butter knives, which was a culture shock moment.
However, one of the biggest culture shocks was the fact that there is a full bar and nightclub on campus. When I settled into my dorm there was a folder containing general information and a leaflet of coupons for the on-campus bar. Located in the basement of the student union building is a club that is free to students and does many activities. Since the legal drinking age is 18 years old all the students coming to university will be able to drink, therefore there is a big difference when it comes to the drinking cultures in England versus the UK.
This is all within the first week of being here, therefore there will be more discoveries I make along the way and I hope all you reading will join me for the ride.
