The Grind of the London Internship Program Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

The workload for the 2 math courses taken at City University was manageable. You were responsible for studying as much as you needed with no actual assignments to turn in (common for most college math courses). However, the two required credits taken with Arcadia (the Wednesday night class on Diversity in the British Workforce, and the 7500 word paper that went with the internship) required an extremely large amount of time with very little reward. The Wednesday night class had blog posts and papers that seemed like busy work intended to limit the amount of partying we were doing. Very little was gained from the assignments or lectures of this class. The 2500 word paper (i.e. 27 pages) was an overbearing assignment that took weeks to complete. This counted as 70% of the grade we received from our internship "class". So 24 hours per week at an internship placement only counted as 30% of an abroad credit... then this paper 27 page paper that was a source of stress the entire semester... added up to the equivalent of ONE class taken at home (actually, .75/1 credits at my home university).

On-site administration of your program

Very disorganized. Their knowledge of the host country's education was weak. I started classes a week late because my original set of classes didn't work with my internship schedule (they thought the math classes would meet once a week, but in reality they met 3 times a week). Also, it was at times difficult to communicate via email. A response outside of 9-5 Monday through Friday was nonexistent. When a student is frantically trying to pick out classes that could start tomorrow morning, this trend could cause problems.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

I lived in a flat with other American study abroad students. It was three bedrooms, 6 guys, and 2 bathrooms, with a living room and small kitchen. The building I was in had 4 floors of this setup, all with American study abroad students. Although sometimes there was an issue with sharing 2 bathrooms with this many guys (since everyone was on the same schedule essentially), I was overall pleased with the living arrangement. The only complaint that I had was the location of the flat. Although the flat was in a very nice (and expensive) part of London, it was an hour travel from my internship placement AND my classes at City University. This caused a lot of problems on the days when I had to do a half day at my internship, then go to classes in the afternoon. I wish there would have been more thought involved in the location of our living arrangements (this issue was common with most of the people I was living with).

To save money, I HIGHLY suggest trying to stick to buying food at the grocery store and cooking it at home. It can be very expensive to eat out in London, and the food is not that great most of the time. If you like indian/curry and/or japanese/thai/chinese food, then you will be very pleased by the options you have to eat out. However, it gets expensive very quickly. The prices are about the same as the United States (maybe 20 bucks for 2 people at a sit down restaurant), but with the exchange rate that equates to almost 40 dollars.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

The program offered a few field trips for a fee, but I elected to travel on my own.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

No comment really. We all kind of caught a cold when we got there (because of the difference in weather).

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

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• Other

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• Americans

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• Local Students

• Internship placement
• London

• Lessoned Workload (Less busywork)
• More organization/information