留学心得:英国思克莱德大学(甘露 国会112)

发布时间:2020-06-12       访问量:

Experience sharing in Strathclyde

By Lu GAN (International Accounting 112)

​Looking back my two-year undergraduate and one-year postgraduate study in University of Strathclyde, I have mixed feelings. I would like to share with you my experience in Glasgow and Strathclyde and the reason why I stayed there for postgraduate study.


The first problem most foreign students encountered is where to find a nice accommodation. However, this was not a problem to me. Strathclyde provides accommodation in the campus for most new comers. So, there was no need for me to find a place to live by myself worrying whether the accommodation is authentic. Although you could find cheaper flat outside the university. I still insist that the student accommodation provided by school is the best choice if you are the first year abroad. Since the life abroad was a brand-new experience for me, I reckoned that it is not a good choice to waste time on little daily life problems like paying housing tax or fixing the light or gas. The additional services bounding to campus accommodation are huge and will set you free from those annoying things. You could easily reach a campus staff when you meet mostly every problem in life. Thus, I got more time to focus on study in the first year to catch up with my classwork.


My biggest problem when I first came to UK was that I found it hard to express my opinion effectively, which, in other word, is language problem. My English speaking and writing ability was a lot beyond my listening and reading ability. Although I could mainly understand the lecture, I found it is not easy to express my opinion. I think this was also the major concern of many students abroad for the first time. It was very hard to fit in the atmosphere of the class. But this problem was not hard to solve. Because almost every lecture has its corresponding tutorial session. During the session, we joined in group discussion of some academic topics. Some of the discussion would be followed by a presentation and a report. The first few weeks was the most struggle time of these tutorials. The opinion exchange between groupmates was extremely hard and sometimes inefficient or misleading. I even got the lowest mark in my whole student life for my first essay which would be a F if that was an exam. I felt quite depressed since most of our exam was based on essay writing on spot. The fear of failing in the exam haunted me for days at the beginning.


Several weeks later, however, I found my speaking and writing in English became much more fluent and effective. Thanks to these weeks’ practice in tutorial lessons, the marks of my essay and report rose to about 30 points. Also, I think the daily communication with my flat mates helps a lot in improving my English ability too. Staying in the campus accommodation, my flat mates were all students in Strathclyde in different departments. But we had a lot common topic to chat about university life and university work. I could clearly remember the night that I chatted with one of my flat mate till 2 a.m. while watching her create a hilarious dragon model using the 3D visualizing software of organic chemistry.


Apart from my flat mates, I met many other interesting people in the university with diverse background. A Korean woman who is still single at the age of 33 and quit her domestic job to study. A native woman who study part time to squeeze time accompanying her son who has social anxiety. An Indian couple who both could nearly memorize the whole textbook at the end of the semester. They were all ordinary people, but I saw the possibilities of life from them. Their confidence and positive attitude towards live inspired me till today.


 


Having these positive and hard-working classmates, doing class project became a most exciting task for me. University years were full of lectures and projects. And most of school work are projects which is to be done by the unit of group. Participating in a lot of group projects, each group member could improve their strengths as well as learning from each other. I enjoyed those time that spending with my teammates discussing details of projects. And I had presented many great projects with different teammates during these 3 years. I was greatly impressed by the academic atmosphere in Strathclyde. In this University, we did not have that much mainstream thought to influence our own judgement. Even the lecturer with high prestige are always standing on the lecture saying: ‘This is just my opinion’. I could remember how often our lecturer or professor brought their own papers to the class and let us freely discuss our opinion towards their work, no matter the opinions are pros or cons. The academic atmosphere is one important reason why I choose Strathclyde for further postgraduate study.




While Glasgow city is another important reason why I choose to continue study in the same University. Being the third largest city in UK, Glasgow is also known as the City of Architecture in UK. The city center has countless impressive Victorian structures and then there are the unique masterpieces of one of the city's most celebrated sons, the legendary architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The Light House and its Mackintosh display stands not far from the university of Strathclyde thus is my most frequently visited spot in Glasgow. Glasgow offers a blend of internationally-acclaimed museums and galleries, stunning architecture, vibrant nightlife, fantastic shopping and a diverse array of restaurants and bars. To conclude, Glasgow is an amazing city to study as well as to enjoy life.



During these three years abroad, not only I finished my bachelor and master degree, but also met a lot of interesting people, visited many amazing countries and cities which broadened my horizon and enriched my life. This experience will be engraved in my heart and will never be forgotten.