SCSU – one month in!

I’m not sure where to start. Matty, Rich, and I have been at Southern Connecticut State University for over a month now, in a few weeks it’ll be 2 months and all I can say is wow…things here are so different from both back home in England and LJMU.

Paige, Matty and Rich

Firstly, the workload here is entirely different, we have pages upon pages of readings to do every week, usually, more than one for every class we’re taking (we take 5 classes) and we also have weekly assignments. Honestly, the first couple of weeks were horrible, we were all so stressed and just couldn’t adjust to the sudden change in work ethic. But, thankfully, we are slowly getting there, and aren’t as stressed as we were a few weeks ago. Of course, Uni work is stressful wherever you are, we just get other amazing things added on:

• We’ve been to a fair amount of ‘American Football’ games, I’ll try and post an image somewhere, and we honestly didn’t have a clue what was going on, we just cheered when everyone else did haha! But…it was one of the first things we did that was truly American!
• American grocery stores are probably the weirdest thing ever as well! We’ve ventured into Target and Walmart, but nothing has prices on?! What is that? And they put the tax on at the checkout so you have no idea how much the shopping is going cost, and then when there are prices, they’re seriously expensive, like deodorant is $6.00…bonkers prices!
• A few weeks ago we also visited the amazing New York City, 2 and half hours on a bus each way but it was all worth it! It is easily the most spectacular city I have ever been too, so for those of you who have yet to visit then I recommend you do , it’s so loud and bright and just so full of opportunity. Within this time we managed to squeeze in visits to Times Square, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park, shopping on Fifth Avenue and a sneaky lunch at Hard Rock Cafe before having to head back to New Haven.
• As it is almost Halloween, Matty and I decided to organise some trips to American scare attractions…which was extremely exciting but obviously scary, the actors did a great job! They included all sorts of pop culture horror legends including; Halloween, Friday the 13th, Annabelle, The Nun, and hell of a lot of clowns and zombies. I genuinely thought I was in The Walking Dead, seriously creepy!
• We also have loads of trips planned for the next upcoming weeks. We’re hopefully going to Boston and Salem at the weekend if all goes to plan, and we might be going to Hollywood for Halloween if student living allows us (bills suck haha). Many parties coming up, particularly 3 Halloween costume parties so we’re working on some crazy group costumes! And of course, because we finish Uni for Christmas on 14th December, we’re staying in NYC for a few nights before flying home so seeing New York at Christmas is going to be unreal!
• Bonfire parties…every single Thursday a massive group of students gather in the middle of a forest and party and its crazy! One of the most American things we’ve done so far!

They’re obsessed with snapchat here so whenever we get someone who loves England they instantly give us their snapchat! But it’s really nice, it makes us feel a lot more comfortable in this country, town, and university, most people are really nice!

I have to say that applying to come here was the easiest part of this experience. Don’t get me wrong, being here, doing all of these incredible once-in-a-lifetime activities is exciting and worthwhile and I’m so appreciative to those at John Moores who allowed me to do this, but it’s difficult, and it’s scary being away from my family, my friends, my own culture that I’m so used too – But…it’s most definitely worth it, seeing a new culture and new people! So, if any of you ever get the chance in the future to come over here and do something like this please don’t let the opportunity pass you by.

Have fun guys!

From across the pond,

Paige 🙂 x