Royal Holloway University of London

We started out the day wrapping up with Sussex back in Brighton. A few interesting things I learned during our seminars...

~Approximately 33k students study in the UK from the US but just under 9k students from the UK do the reverse

~72% of US students cite finances as a barrier to study abroad vs. 53% of UK students

~ The UK recently implemented a new tuition scheme that tripled the cost of university (from about 3k GBP to 9k GBP per year)

~Starting in 2014 Erasmus students will be able to study in the US on exchange. However, no one actually knows how this is going to work.

~Language study is being de-emphasized in the UK, while transferrable job skills are the focus.

~The UK has been experimenting with virtual mobility schemes as a pre-cursor to physical exchange

Around 10 am we said our goodbyes an boarded our trusty blue coach to head back into London. Well, it was Surrey actually. 

The collective gasp at the beauty of Royal Holloway can't really be forgotten. We spent our first half hour taking photos when they really wanted us to enjoy the gourmet picnic on the Founders' North Quad. It was really difficult to focus on anything, given the magnificent architecture. We felt sort of out of place. Royal Holloway was established in 1886 as a university for women (and their accompanying maids). Thomas Holloway and his wife Jane were trying to emulate the Vassar model.

But after a series of helpful lectures and warm welcomes (including a reception in the portrait gallery--above) we all opened up and felt at ease. We quickly checked into our accommodation--halls gifted by Korea  University-- and changed for our dinner. We only had about 10 minutes to freshen up before our taxis arrived to take us to Windsor. We had another great dinner at Sir Christopher Wren's Hotel & Spa. And yes, it really was his place. Across the river is Eton.

Two streets over was Windsor Castle. Unfortunately we didn't have the chance to meet the Queen or Baby George :-)

University of Sussex

Clearly the University of Sussex wants to make a good impression. They have been such fun hosts. It has been more like meeting up with long lost friends. They welcomed us to their campus, which had 1960's architecture designed to look like objects, ironically similar to BSU. (ex. camera, roll of film, etc.)

They shared some of the great things going on with their international summer school and how they partner with StudyGroup (a private ESL/Foundation provider). We had the opportunity to choose one of two workshops. I chose the workshop on integrated student services. Claire Powrie, Director of Student Services was a great resource for UK student services information and truly put off a student affairs vibe (although they don't technically have that here). It could have been the group work :-)

One of the concepts I gleaned from today was that for exchange partnerships to be both deep and wide, it is smart to exchange faculty before students. Faculty stay around campus and can help the program grow roots. Students leave after a few years, meaning their impact on recruitment is limited. Another thing that was mentioned (yet again) is how the U.K. always historically thought of internationalization as only about recruiting international students and not sending students out. Now they are placing more emphasis on mobility schemes and consider mobility in a much broader sense. They include internships and co-ops as well as study abroad. It is just an interesting point to note since U.S. higher education is very focused on international student recruitment. I suppose it is for many of the same reasons that originally drew the U.K. to fee-paying students. 

After our lunch and lectures they took us to the next town over, Lewes (pronounced "Lewis"). Martin Hookham, Head of the International Office said it best when he described Lewes as "Everything you think England should be". He was spot on. They have a castle, beautiful gardens, narrow alleyways called "twittens", and timber frame buildings. Lewes is most famous for their Guy Fawkes bonfires and having been the former home of Thomas Paine. They even have their own local currency. We took a slightly rainy tour of the town with a blue-badge guide and ended at a pub with a round from the uni. You really can't get better than that.

They gave us a few hours of free time to relax before dinner. I took this as the opportunity to head over to the Tesco and buy a tube of McVitie's Digestives --the best cookies ever--and stopped myself short of a half package. Dinner was at Bill's, a local chain. I ate until I had to question my wardrobe, as it should be.

Imperial College London to Brighton

I woke up in my favorite city in the world to a bright blue sky. How is that for perfect? I made sure to get a bit ahead of schedule so I could sneak a few minutes in the square outside our hotel in Prince's Garden. Some of the best memories I have of London are of taking walks in the neighborhoods. I love to go into the posh neighborhoods and secretly peek in the windows to check out the insides. I enjoy watching the flats under construction because they normally have the doors open so I can get a better view from the sidewalk. [Disclaimer: I am not a stalker] I adore all of the moulding and beautiful details. For about 30 seconds I swoon and wonder what it would be like to live in Kensington or Chelsea. Then I come crashing back to reality, knowing I'd be hard pressed to ever afford a zone 3 studio. But that doesn't make it any less thrilling.

We participated in 3 great sessions coordinated by Imperial College London. The first was on career services (Jason Yarrow). It is quite impressive to hear about the number of sessions, workshops, fairs and services they provide, not to mention the fact that employers are beating down their door to hire graduates. Imperial College London is like the MIT of the UK (or MIT is the Imperial College London of the US). Either way, they produce some outstanding graduates.

The second session was on professional skills development. Knowing that Ph.D. students in the STEM fields (that's science, technology, engineering and mathematics for you non-higher education folks) are sometimes high functioning but not really able to communicate their skills and science to non-geniuses, Imperial College developed a mandatory series of workshops to help the students pick up soft skills and even reduce their feelings of stress and isolation.  They decided to give us a taste of the kinds of things they do with the students and took us out for a fun teambuilding exercise and debrief. I won't go into all of the details, but let's say things got competitive. It was a load of fun.

We also had the chance to speak with a group of current postgraduate students from the U.S. who are studying at Imperial College. They gave us some good feedback about what it is like to work in a lab and conduct cutting edge research in a research driven educational system. And I came to the conclusion that I wasn't born to touch the STEM disciplines (or medicine).

Afterward we took a campus tour and had to stop midway for a photo op when it was discovered that there are 6 (!) of us women having a birthday during the program. What can I say? Leos roar. There has to be something about our competitive nature.

We might have been able to walk to Brighton faster, but we took our beloved coach and fought rush hour city traffic down to the seaside. We arrived in town around 7:30 (late for the dinner reservations) but kept up our "no worries" attitude, dropped our bags, met the University of Sussex staff, and headed off down some lovely winding alleys to Jamie's for dinner. That would be Jamie Oliver's restaurant. I'll let you guess how the food tasted :-)

Our hotel, MyHotel , is stylish and relaxing to say the least. I'm thankful we get to stay 2 nights here. I can tell already that we will be treated well by Sussex. And Brighton is, well, sort of an eclectic place. I can't wait to get to know it better.