My Graduate School Life in England: Challenges and New Experiences

My graduate school life in England began, and I was exposed to fields I had never studied before in English for the first time. Although I’m managing to keep up for now, it’s easy to see that I’ll soon find myself unable to keep up.

This was my first experience taking university classes in English. Unlike some classes in graduate school in Japan that used English, the classes in England were conducted in real English, just like native speakers. I was already immersed in the atmosphere by the second class.

My classmates in the same department seemed to be taking the class without any emotion. I have no idea how they felt about this class. However, when I asked Liu, “How is the class?” he replied, “It’s difficult.” I felt a little relieved that I wasn’t the only one finding this difficult.

To be honest, I didn’t understand even half of the English in class. Feeling a sense of crisis, I decided to rely on a certain item – a recorder. I thought that if I recorded the lectures and listened to them over and over again later, I might be able to manage even though I’m not good at English.

I found the latest IC recorder online and headed to the store to purchase it. From then on, I would go to class with this IC recorder in my pocket and record what was being said.

Joining the Christian Union Club

On a different note, I had decided to join a club called Christian Union. There were a lot of Asian people there, which was surprising to me, especially from Singapore. Even now, when I think back on it, they were really nice people. They were so kind to me that I still want to repay them somehow.

I was told there was going to be a welcome party, so I headed to the designated meeting place. From there, we all went in a group to a nearby Chinese restaurant. The club members were giving welcome speeches and such, but I just sat there enjoying the delicious food I hadn’t had in a long time.

A male student came up to me – a person from Singapore named Barnabas Su-kun. He is the greatest person in my life. He was concerned about me and asked me a lot of questions about my life as a student abroad.

When I told him, “I’m worried because where I live now is a little far away,” he asked me, “Can I live in the university dormitory?” When I replied, “I applied for a dorm but was rejected,” he said, “Let’s go to the office together tomorrow and see if there are any vacancies.”