Text only

Back to Apache home page

JO ZULKOWSKY

This semester I will be coming to you from England, where I am one of 26 Illinois students studying at Canterbury Christ Church College.

I arrived here three weeks ago, after a six-hour flight and the stress of trying to pack three months of clothing and everyday needs.

Classes, which began on Jan. 10, are a drastic change from what I was used to at IVCC. Each class meets only once a week for three hours. The format is lecture and discussion, but we take few notes. Our final grade will be based on our attendance and a five to six-page research paper pertaining to what we’ve covered in class.

In my British literature class, instead of a textbook, we’re reading four major pieces of literature, paperback novels. When I went to the bookstore to buy the first one, "Frankenstein," I noticed another difference, the disorder. Unlike IVCC’s bookstore where the shelves are labeled and the books neatly arranged, the books here are crammed on the shelves with very little to no organization.

Canterbury Christ Church College itself is disorganized compared to IVCC. When a class is moved to another room, for example, there’s no notice on the door, and as much as three hours of being shuffled around to figure out where the class is meeting.

Overall, I have found the British to be more laid back than we are. The earliest any class begins or shops open during the week is 9 a.m. For the most part, the college and local shops are accessible on Saturday, but on Sunday, the hours are limited.

We are living with host families. I’m about ten minutes from campus and about 20 minutes from anywhere in Canterbury.

We have breakfast with our host family. For the other meals we have to buy food, eat out or work something out with our hosts. The amount of interaction we have with our hosts varies from family to family.

Although buying paperback books has been cheaper than buying major textbooks, other things here are more expensive than they are at home. The Pizza Hut buffet cost me about twice what it would in the Illinois Valley.

Finally, I would like to clear up one misconception most Americans have of England being rainy and cool all the time. What the British call "rain," we would call "drizzle." In the last three weeks, we have had some very nice sunny days with temperatures in the 40’s, like March in the Illinois Valley, without the snow.