In college, every semester can seem like it stretches on into eternity. Slowly but surely the empty days on my calendar fill themselves to the brim and I’m left counting the days until I have a break from the craziness. It can be stressful, busy, and downright insane, but when summer rolls around, it’s four months of class-free bliss. However, there is the small task of filling that time with internships, jobs, and volunteering, not to mention balancing those with seeing friends and enjoying the sun. College students are constantly busy, but we thrive on the action.
This summer I have an internship at Harvard Medical School, where I’m working in a neurobiology lab studying sleep in fruit flies. It’s been an incredible and insightful experience, because working with graduate students is the best way to see what my future in graduate school will be like. Working full time is the best way to get the most out of my internship, plus it distracts me from counting the seconds until the unbelievable year I have coming begins.
I’ll be heading to London this upcoming academic year and studying at University College London through the Tufts-in-London program. That’s right. The. Whole. Year. I had always anticipated going abroad in college, but if you had asked me three years ago if I could spend a whole year in Europe on my own, I would’ve laughed until the cows came home (farm references happen a lot when you’re from a farming town like I am!)
I’ve been reflecting on my decision a lot this summer. The closer my departure date gets, the more I think about if I’ve made the right choice. I know it won’t be easy, and at first, it probably won’t be very fun. But taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity is something I may never get to do again, so I’m setting out to make the most of it as I possibly can.
I’m originally from a tiny town in Connecticut, known only for its dense forests and overflowing cow and chicken populations. Moving from there to Boston was a big step, and now I’m taking a grander leap across the pond and plopping myself in one of the biggest cities in the world: London. Beside the fact that I’ll be thousands of miles from home in an unfamiliar country, the even bigger problem that won’t leave my mind is, “How am I going to pack everything I need into a suitcase?” West-coasters likely understand my ordeal (send me tips, please). On top of that there’s sorting out my visa and figuring out everything I can about my new school. New school, new friends, new city? Sounds like Freshmen Year 2.0!
Stick along for the ride as I jump in to British culture, navigate a university with a population nine times greater than Tufts (read: 36,000), and try to figure out the obsession with tea when I’m a diehard coffee fanatic at heart.