While studying in London, I’m living in the Tower Hamlets borough. The area I’m in is a nice neighborhood near some of London’s iconic landmarks: Tower Bridge, Tower of London, and The Gherkin. Each of these is within a twenty-minute walk from me, so I’ve been able to explore them a couple of times. Also, the transportation has been easy to use. Similar to Pitt, public transportation is the primary mode of transportation. The program provided us with an Oyster card similar to a Port Authority card that allows us to travel freely in zones 1 and 2 and take any bus. Because of this, I’ve been able to travel to most of London’s landmarks, as well as ride on a double-decker bus, which was the trip of a lifetime and still is. 

Adapting to living in London has been a big challenge for me. The actual house was hard to get used to. The beds are twin-sized, and it took a while for me to feel like I wasn’t going to fall off. All the appliances here are new and challenging to figure out. We’re four weeks in and have yet to figure out our oven, and I fear we may never. However, the most challenging part to get used to was the food. At home, I have some comfortable foods that help me stay stable, but it took a while for me to adjust to the food in London. Most of the food isn’t to my taste, which makes it challenging to find a place that I like. Even the same restaurants that we have at home taste different here. For a while, I struggled with finding food that I liked and wouldn’t upset my stomach. But after getting over that hump I started to enjoy my time in London more. 

In many ways, CAPA is different from Pitt. The classes allow us to explore London while also learning in the classroom. In all my classes we have taken field trips, some notable ones trips were to Horizon 22; one of London’s sky scrappers where you can view London from above, The Bank of Englands museum where we learned about the evolution of money types in England, and two separate vistis to the Victoria and Albert Museum which has seven mile long of exhibits to explore and evaluate the exhibits. 

While in London, I am taking three classes, with two focusing on Business. My first class is exploring and analyzing the global city of London. In this class, we explore the many concepts of London as a global city and the ways it has changed over the years. After our trips, we are expected to discuss the connections between that week’s topic and our trip. 

For my business consulting class, we are working with a British company called Kind Community. For this class, we are expected to help build their presence on TikTok and help increase their sales by opening a TikTok shop for one of their newly acquired companies, Kind2. We must work in groups to come up with possible creators that could boost the credibility of Kind2. 

Lastly, in my International Finance class, we explore the changes in Finance and how they have affected the world and the financial system we have today, in addition to examining various economic concepts, including foreign exchange, stakeholder versus shareholder considerations, and the central banks of the world. 

Overall, for all my classes, the main skills required are presentation skills to deliver precise and conceptual information, as well as research and analytical skills to connect the concepts taught to our own experiences. Each class challenges me and helps me build up one of my weaknesses in public speaking, which I have seen improve since I started my London classes.