After having a few weeks to settle here in Letterkenny the time to begin classes has come. I want to begin by talking a little bit about my first week and what it is like starting grad school here. First off, I must say it is a strange feeling being the international student for once. Throughout all my years in the education system back home I had the opportunity to meet a ton of interesting international students. However, it is certainly a little different being one of those foreign students now. For example, the school was taking pictures of the different clubs at LYIT and they called out for all the international students. It took me a while for it to click in my head that I was one of them!
Furthermore, the school itself is quite similar to my college experience in many ways. The buildings are all very modern, the class sizes are small, and the campus itself is small. Therefore, it’s very similar to my USciences experience. However, the one glaring difference is being in a much more rural area, as opposed to being in the heart of Philadelphia.
Next, the first induction week went very well. I was able to meet all of my classmates and professors. Fortunately, all of which seem to be very kind and welcoming. The only difficult part was learning where each classroom was. Also, the grading and assessment system seems to be a little bit different so I have yet to get an understanding of how all of that goes.
The accent of the professors is a whole different story… I’m constantly finding myself saying, ”I’m sorry can you please repeat that.”
Also, I really think I will enjoy and learn a lot of valuable information in my Marketing major this year so I am definitely excited to begin to dive into the coursework. Already I can see I will gain a much more international understanding of business.
If I can, I would like to try to begin talking a little bit about different towns/cities I visit in each blog. So the first one is my most recent trip to southeast Ireland, the town of Carlow.
Last weekend, Jack and I had the chance to go down to Carlow with our national league team for a preseason tournament. It was a blast of a trip. Carlow was a cool little town situated 80km from Dublin. It certainly has some fun nightlife that I was able to experience a little bit. The tournament had a bunch of other Victory Scholars in it so it was an awesome time playing against them and going out together at night. It was great to catch up and see how everyone is doing after our first month of being here. I sure would like to get down to Carlow again to visit the Victory Scholars sometime soon!
