Day 4, 11 Jan: A List of Differences/Arrival at the University of East Anglia

Norfolk Terraces, UEA, Norwich. Day 4. 20:35.

            No street sweeper woke me up at 7 and I missed breakfast entirely. Similar to my first morning in London, I awoke somehow aware that I had slept in. Sure enough, it was 8:35 and our group had a meeting at the London Study Centre at 9. Ugh. Showered and starved (well, I had a granola bar), I joined the group and we all walked over late together, since we decided to wait for everyone in the lobby. I think Amy, who organized the group waiting, even called to check if I was awake around 8:40. You know, I’m really going to miss this group. Everyone was nice and supportive. And I probably wouldn’t have found my way to the Study Centre very well on my own either. Luckily, I wasn’t the last one they waited on.

            In the second slideshow presentation at the Centre, the program manager Monika Popp went over the academics at our host universities. This was the first time I realized that I was a little afraid. These last three days were a vacation, thinking back over them retrospectively, and none of it would affect my academic progress in college. But now, things were starting to settle in a bit more. The honeymoon phase of my trip had lost the peak point of boundless joy and wonder at being a foreigner. Now responsibility as a student surfaced in a more present way.

            The newness of being a student in another country came with the price of unthought-of differences. English and American education systems have such a bizarre set of differences: in England, students finish primary school (or, elementary school) and go on to college, which is their word for “high school”. They study and concentrate on certain subjects at an early age to take A-levels, or tests to evaluate their merit in those few subjects (yes, like SATs, in a way, but these tests determine whether they get to go onto University, which is what Americans call “college”). If they do not get into University, there are trade schools opened to students. As for those accepted to University, most students take a year off before beginning. At University, having a course (and a course is one’s major/process towards a bachelor’s degree; there is no minor or double-major notion; there are not even breadth classes or electives) is a very structured 3-year process. The first year grades don’t count, as long as the students pass all their modules. The second year is more advanced, equivalent to American college juniors, and third year modules require a lot of time and can have mini-dissertations at the end, replacing final examinations or final papers.

That is the basic structure. The grades given out are even more interesting. Getting a 70% on a paper is an outstanding A, a 60-66% is an A-, a 54-50% is a B, a 44-40% is a C+, 34-35% a D, and 0-33% F. You may ask, but what about 71-100%? Well generally, the school board rarely ever gives grades past 70%, so in a way they are relatively useless. 0-70 is their scale. As far as what is graded, final examinations can be up to 100% of the grade for a module, but at least for mine, they are a bit less so that coursework and projects count too. Yet still, 80% is a normal weight for the final in the breakdown of a module’s syllabus. Independent study is apparently the main lesson subconsciously taught at University.

More on the logistics of a given module, the faculty (even the word “professor” is not really used; for lectures, the professor is the “lecturer”; for small discussions, called “seminars”, I think “professor” might be used) have no control over textbook selection, number and weight of assignments/exams, due dates, or late policies. If you miss an exam, you fail the module (in American terms, a “class”; a British “course” is one’s major). For a module, especially in humanities but in technical-course modules (i.e. engineering, etc.) as well, there are long lists of books given out, some mandatory and the rest optional. The UK students pick and choose what they want to read and study (oh yeah, to “read” means to study) and write papers on the topics they want. Of course, the logistics of their arguments in papers have to be entirely constructed by themselves (even examination essay questions encourage this, i.e. there are no part (a), (b), and (c) to address—all the structural scaffolding is in their hands), and they don’t flock to office hours like American college students do when an essay deadline is around the corner. In fact, office hours are not even mandatory and most UK students don’t go.

I got a bit carried away there, I’m afraid. All day I’ve been thinking about these things, and get reminded by the differences by even smaller and mundane ones: yellow caution stoplights flash both going to red and going to green, zig-zag lines are marked in the streets at turns (so that cars do not pull over there), cars drive on the left side of the road (yeah, yeah, duh, but you really have to remind yourself when waiting for a bus, crossing the street, sitting in the passenger seat of a taxi, etc. Otherwise, you may panic for a split-second). Of course the list goes on, but these just struck out at the moment.

After the presentation, we went back to the hotel, checked out, and went to our respective universities. Sierra, Rebecca, and I all took one mini-cab to the Liverpool Station, and after an almost two-two hour train ride past the Olympic Stadium and a lot of countryside, we then took a £10.50 taxi ride to the heart of the University of East Anglia. We finally arrived.

Moving in was a relatively easy process, checking in with my passport, getting my room key, booklets, and student ID, and riding on a van-bus to Norfolk Terrace, my home for six months. I found out from the man who registered me that I have an “Australian gentleman” as my roommate. I probably will meet him tomorrow. Sadly, there is no one else in the flat/on my floor. Well, UEA begins next Monday (skipping the MLK holiday, no less; I do miss American holidays) and most students take their time getting back (don’t we all). Even more unfortunately this evening is that I have no way to hook up to the internet. If you read this, Katya, friends, and family, now you know why I couldn’t skype or email tonight. It is rather lonely, but after a 10-minute initial move-in to the actual room, Sierra, Rebecca, and I took the £2.40 bus ride (btw, I will not call a bus a “coach”; to me, it’s a bus. End of discussion.) to the city centre of Norwich.

The longer we were there, all of that hour and a half, things got creepy: stores closed at 4, 5, and the entire mall closed at 5:30. Cafés were closed and even most stores were utterly empty by 6. After a short dinner in the mall and quick linen/towel purchases at a nearby store, we were relieved that at least the bus still came at 6. 18:00. Whatever. I heard last night that the UK uses military time as a formal written way of recording time, not in common speech. People still say, “It’s 6”.

Back at campus, we all found our ways back to our dorms and so here I am, in Norfolk Terraces writing these last two entries at 9:51. Oh, this lack of internet is bugging the crap out of me. Orientation starts tomorrow. Night.