Student Bloggers

MyBangor is Bangor University’s online system in which students have access to see their timetable, their personal tutor (or advisor as one hears in America) and news about the university. MyBangor is like Canvas, but they don’t use Canvas here, to my knowledge. During both the international student’s welcome week and the first year’s welcome week, typically referred to here as Fresher’s Week, I’ve been trying to take ownership of this term. I’m going to be here for three months, so might as well make this place feel like home. I’m pretty confident that I’m already there too.

The day I moved in here, I was incredibly nervous. I took a three-hour train ride from London’s Euston station to Bangor’s train station along with the other person in my program and my program manager in London, James. I spent the entire train ride trying to entertain myself in multiple ways to distract myself from how incredibly nervous I was to move into a new university for three months and how nervous I was about making new friends here. I’ve never been particularly good at doing so, and have gone through life with a few people I am very close to but have struggled to make other friends. But, that night, my worries dissipated when I went to go grab something to eat before a trip to the local grocery store and a girl asked if she could sit with me. We spent the time waiting for the walking trip talking to each other, about our lives, where we’re from (She’s from Germany and I’m born and raised on the east coast of the states), and our colleges. We kept talking on our way to the grocery store and by the end of the night, I already knew I had a good friend that I could talk to while I’m here. The next day, I met another girl at our welcome breakfast who is doing her Graduate degree here in Celtic Archaeology. She ended up also being from the States, living in Atlanta, Georgia. Then, I made another friend from Belgium and another from Germany. Throughout the day, I met more and more people that are now good friends and all my worries were gone while we became better friends over drinks almost every night before the first years moved in.

Now, I am sitting in my room in my flat here writing this, waiting to finish getting ready to go out for dinner and drinks to celebrate a friend’s birthday here. Sure, there’s been many stressful things that have also happened here, like being sent on a scavenger hunt to pick up my ID card and getting lost almost every time I leave my flat. But I am happy here and have been incredibly grateful for all the adventures I’ve gone on and the friends I’ve made here. Now, I just have to finish all the welcome week activities this week, including a trip to the national park right behind the main campus, and then I’ll officially be starting classes!

I am a bit nervous because I know the UK educational system is definitely different than the US educational system, but I’m still excited for the experience, and to actually start planning trips to other places!

I’m signing off for now, but I’ll be back soon to update you all on my life here! See ya!