Somebody stop time …

Looking out the window still reminds me of the end of the summer and my first days at the University of Aberdeen. The sun is shining, the students are constantly and furiously running to and fro, and I am trying to find out where the last month and half has gone.

It’s as if I arrived yesterday. You couldn’t get lost at the airport, crowded by bustling students in yellow T-shirts. Once they had distributed us to our dorms, everybody unpacked and started to socialize bit by bit. The result was a flock of students running around the city, trying to find a shop that still had some blankets to sell and the club where an event was supposed to be. Sadly, the first week ended quicker than any of us could imagine. And school was up next. Having met my advisor, I knew my subjects, but I still had to wait for my schedule for another week. My choice was clear: sociology and international relations as my major, plus some languages so that I could communicate abroad. I chose French and Chinese.

The school offers a lot of extracurricular activities and ways to become part of the community, which helps the time to pass incredibly quickly here. However weird or unique your hobbies may be, you are certain to find a group with the same hobby here.

I want to spend as little time in my room as possible, so I help other students at the local Bookends, which is a sort of bookshop that is run by the students, for the students. It’s a place where anybody can sell or donate their old textbooks, and buy other textbooks at much reduced prices. As I said, it is run by students, and everybody works there on a volunteer basis. In addition, I help the local UNICEF group and generally try to get in on the action here. The school also offers many workshops and lectures on various topics. Simply put, you don’t get bored here.

Scotland is beautiful, and even though everybody says how rainy it’s here, so far I have been really lucky with weather. I have experienced a beautiful Indian summer here, which gave me some time to acclimate for the upcoming frost. Aside from that, over the coming weeks I am in for essays, Chinese and French tests and, last but not least, the reading week – a week with no lectures that I will spend preparing for the tests and, hopefully, going for a trip somewhere.

As I said, the local University makes sure that everybody finds what they are looking for here and that students can also garner knowledge and skills outside of the lecture hall. As such, students can hone in on what they expect from their time at University, and what they can do to achieve it. I have found my little path – and now I just hope that I will reach its end.