Most of my posts have been about my travels in Scotland. But, I am studying abroad, right? Yes, my posts make it seem like I am traveling most of the time, but those are the weekends folks. During the week I am a full-time student. And (nerd alert), to be honest, I don’t mind that. I really enjoy being able to experience learning in a different way here. A refresher on the courses I am taking here: two honors level psychology classes, Memory and Perception and Psychology of Language and Thinking, British History I and Social Anthropology. British history is probably my favorite so far, and the one class that I have been getting the most assignments from, which consist of papers. I turned my last one in yesterday! It was about Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement in the years leading up to WWII. I won’t bore you with the details about that (even though I find it very interesting).

What does my typical weekday look like? Let’s take Tuesdays. I get up at nine, and head for my social anthropology tutorial at ten. A tutorial is basically the same thing as a discussion section. At eleven, I have British History. I then have two hours off where I usually get lunch and print out lecture slides in the library. At two, I head off to the psychology building for Memory and Perception. This finishes at four. The psychology lectures are only once a week. I then usually go to the library to do some reading before my evening activities, which could involve going to dinner with friends, society meetings, or just hanging out with people.

So what are some of the differences to Northwestern?

There is a bigger focus on independent learning here, I think. That is, there aren’t as many small assignments, midterms or essays here compared to what I am used to from NU. I don’t have any exams except for my finals: that means that my psychology grades are based 100% on my one exam. That is a little scary. This means that you better keep up with your reading throughout the semester, or revision time will be hell. Nobody checks up on you, so it can be easy to let it slide.

Another thing that was hard to adjust to at first was the fact that the course syllabi sometimes list an enormous amount of recommended reading. At Northwestern I am used to buying maybe a total of five books at Becks for the quarter. There is no way you can buy all the listed readings here, so the library becomes a major resource. And you kind of hone in on a few key readings that are of particular interest to you. The pro of this system is that I am an expert at the library system, and have become very comfortable with working during the daytime in the library. My work is done during the day between lectures, leaving my evenings mostly free, whereas at NU, it is the opposite.

Being in the middle of a city is also a difference. I think it can be overwhelming as a freshman, but I think it’s ideal now that I’m a bit older because it means that I can separate myself from my identity as a uni student and be a normal person sometimes as well. I feel that I can get a little stuck on campus sometimes at NU, so it’s refreshing to be able to just walk out my door here and be able to immerse myself in a city with ordinary people who aren’t obsessing over their next paper or exam all the time. I get to be in the “real world” more often. 

The grading scale is quite different. A mark of 65 is quite good here. I think I would cry if I got a 65 at Northwestern. The difference is that in the US, you start with a mark of 100, and then points get deducted as you go along. Here, you start with zero, and build up. Getting a mark above 70 here is quite hard apparently, and above 75-80, very rare as an undergraduate. We had a crash course in the differences in grading at orientation so that we didn’t all have breakdowns when getting essays back for the first time here.

Do I prefer one system to another? The answer is diplomatic: not really. I like the way Northwestern is so structured and organized. But I also like the way that you really get to be your own boss here: you structure your reading, etc. I see it this way: in studying abroad, I get the best of both worlds. I can wear my Northwestern hoodie and my Edinburgh hoodie with pride because both universities are great institutions.