10/17/2016 3 Comments From Oxford Street to OxfordThis past week was the first week of classes officially. It is interesting to see how different the education system is set up here. First of all the UK high school system deviates significantly from that of the US. Students choose their course of study for the last two years of high school, in what's known as A levels. Then at the end of the two years they take exam on these courses. Depending on what scores they get will determine what "uni" (no one calls them colleges) will accept them. Once they enter a course at university, they are only in classes for their course of study, no electives or general education requirements. This means that they often finish school in three years depending on the course. Anyways, when it came to scheduling courses I've found lots of differences in the terms used. For instance, a schedule is called a timetable. They don't really specify what type of math classes people take, but refer to it generally as "maths" (yes, it is plural). In addition, classes in the timetable are inconsistent from day to day and even from week to week. For instance, my classes on Monday are different from the classes on Monday in the next week. Classes are recorded and posted as well, but tend to be longer than 50 minute classes back home. This week, on top of going to classes, I joined Engineering Without Borders so went to my first meeting for that. Also, I had both a Chemical Engineering dinner and a Fresher's (their term for freshmen) Dinner. Both were three course meals, complimented with wine and champagne. Both were great experiences. Additionally, I went shopping on Oxford Street which was one of the main shopping centers in central London. There I got an idea of the popular European stores. Primark is this massive store filled with cheap, fashionable clothing and was packed. They also have very high end stores as well. This past Saturday I went to Oxford. A group of exchange students took a bus there and we toured the school and learned a lot about the history. We also explored a bit on our own. It's incredible how old the college is and the remarkable history that accompanies it. So many famous people have attended the university and taught at it. There was a museum on campus that had loads of historic scientific artifacts, such as the evolution of light microscopes and also a chalkboard preserved from one of Einstein's lectures on the theory of relativity.
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