Interview between CGIS Advisor, Ellyse, and Student, Eva Crickard: University College London (UCL) W26

Ellyse Vogel, CGIS Study Abroad Advisor: My first question, what made you pick UCL out of all of the UK options? Because we know there's a lot.

 EC: So, I think, for me, the options to study abroad for the math major specifically, where I would get the classes that I actually need to get to earn credit towards my major and get classes that would actually work as equivalencies were kind of slim.

Queen Mary was my backup, and I did get into Queen Mary, and I was looking at their course selection, because UCL did take a little longer to let me know if I got in or not. In the meantime, I was looking at Queen Mary, and I actually realized that I could not take their class selections. They didn't have enough classes that I could take that would count towards my major. So there were definitely limited options for me because of that specifically.

CGIS: Beyond just the major stuff, was there anything about the UK that you were really interested in, or was it just the availability of those courses? 

EC: The availability of the courses was a big factor, but I had previously studied abroad in Spain. I did the Advanced Spanish in Alicante program, which was one of my favorite experiences ever. I know this isn't about that, but I definitely loved that program, and I was just kind of thinking to myself, like, the two languages I speak are English and Spanish, and I did a study abroad in Spanish, so why don't I try something else? I totally would have gone back to Spain, though, I loved it, but I had never really been to London. I'd been, like, 6 hours and, for a layover, and I just thought it was a really cool city. It's a really big city, too, and there's always something happening, and it's fairly easy to get to a lot of other places from London. The accessibility to travel is really high, like, London has a great connection to the rest of Europe. If you want to go there, the UK is a really good jumping-off point if traveling is one of your goals for study abroad.

CGIS: In terms of UCL in particular, what sort of pre-departure information or orientation did they provide you? 

EC: There was a Zoom-like webinar that they hosted, and they had a moderator, and then two students who were either study abroad students, or more permanent affiliate students, like, they were going there for their whole three years, but they were also from different countries. And they kind of just sat down and asked them a lot of questions. That was really helpful to me, because I think it answered a lot of questions that I didn't even know I had, like, I didn't know to ask yet. So that one was really helpful to me.

There were a couple emails sent out. I think the math department was a little less orientation-y than perhaps some other departments, which is, you know, math majors… we’re not entirely social people, but I think a lot of other major programs did a few Zooms before you got there. I didn't have an orientation for my major until I got there, which had its pros and cons, because then I got to meet people in person, and I made some friends through that. But then I also think some of the questions I had, I didn't get answered before I went, which was a little less helpful.

I had to reach out to my advisor specifically and be like, “hey, can you answer these for me before we do this whole group thing, or before any of this information is sent out? Like, I'm confused, can you help me?” And my advisor was great, he was super helpful, it was just a little bit less of an intuitive process. Normally, the name of your advisor is posted in their equivalent of Wolverine Access, called Portico, but for some reason, mine was not, so I had to reach out to someone and be like, “hey, who's my advisor?” So, it was a little less intuitive. The support style there is definitely a lot more hands-off. And I think administratively, there are a few technical difficulties that I encountered. They weren't the most administratively organized, but I had great teachers, and my personal advisor through the math department, was super kind, super sweet, just great. But just a few administrative technical difficulties for sure. 

CGIS: Definitely heard that in the past, so, it's good to know that that is a recurring theme still. Did you feel like if you had questions, that the study abroad office was a place that you could go to for help there, or were they pretty hands-off as well? 

EC: The study abroad office was really helpful. Really, it's, like, two women, and they're super sweet, super helpful, but they are also new to this job. The existence of an office to support, they call it affiliate students when you're studying abroad there, is very new, so they're also figuring things out as they go. They're the sweetest, though. They are very helpful, and they hosted, oh my gosh, I totally forgot. They hosted an all-day orientation for affiliates when we got there, too, an overall orientation with mini sessions, and you could come or not to those. There was a session on using the library, there was a session on safety, there was a session on what you need to know before your first day of classes. And then, at the end of the day, there was a mixer, where all the affiliate students went. That was actually the most helpful thing, because I met so many people there, and I know I was talking to a lot of my friends, we were like, “that was actually really, really fun.” So it was, like, a two-hour thing where everyone was just in a gymnasium, and they had drinks, and it was a really fun vibe. I think a lot more people came to that than they did the orientation sessions, so the mixer that the study abroad office hosted was really, really fun, and I think that's how a lot of us got to know each other. 

CGIS: Was the mixer free? 

EC: Yeah. I don't remember getting charged for any study abroad events specifically. What I do know is that you had to pay--it's not a huge fee--like 28, 24 pounds, or something, to join the students' union, and then that lets you join clubs. The one thing that was a little bit frustrating about that process is that, obviously, I was a winter semester only affiliate, and a lot of the clubs would be like, “we're not accepting affiliate students.” Or they did accept affiliate students in the fall, and they're just not doing it in the winter. So I think that was little bit of a bummer, because I was planning on joining a couple clubs with some of my friends, and some of them were ‘open, but you couldn't tell if it was open unless you pay the student's union fee, but then if you pay the student's union fee and you couldn't get into the club, then you just paid £24 to basically do nothing, because you're only there for, like, 5 months. So I think that was something that me and some of my friends had difficulty with; interacting with the students who go there all the time was a little bit more difficult because of the club restrictions on Affiliate Students. That was a little disappointing. 

CGIS: Yeah, UCL has a bit of a reputation, which it probably earned, so it's good to hear that they're starting to prioritize that a bit more.

CGIS: Speaking of, the sort of beginning parts of the experience, when you went to register for courses–what was that like? Were you able to get the classes you wanted? Was it a frustrating experience?

EC: It was a frustrating experience for me. Because, first of all, I had researched and tried to find what courses would be available that semester and then run them by my Michigan advisors before UCL, because, obviously, I need to make sure that it's okay for my major, my departmental credit, and all the General Distribution stuff. So, I was running it by 3 different advisors: my Spanish advisor, my math professor, and my general advisor. And with my math advisor, she's super sweet, but my math advisor is the director of undergraduate mathematics, so it's hard to get an appointment with her, because she's awesome, and she's amazing, and everyone wants to talk to her. So, I had my classes picked out, because I was looking on the math website and I was seeing what would be available, and I ran them by her, and I was great, I was set, I had a plan.

And then I figured out that the courses that were shown as available on the math website were not the same as the courses that were actually available. They have a module (course) searcher, like a search engine, and you can see what's available, two of the modules that I had picked out were not available that semester. And I was like, “okay, that sucks”, because I thought on the math website, it said it was. And I talked to my math advisor about that, and he's like, “yeah, we're working on updating the website”, and I was like, “okay…”. And maybe that's my fault, I should have known to look on the module search engine, but I did not. So, then I had to go and find new modules that would count towards my major and run them by my math advisor again. 

And then, the tricky part about registration itself is that if you are trying to study multiple things, the UK in general doesn't really do that. They don't really do double majors, minors, not really. So, trying to get courses outside of your Home Department is really difficult, actually. In your module registration it doesn't even show you courses from other departments. You can only see courses in your department, and you can register for those. What you have to do if you want to take a course outside of your Home Department--which I did, because I have a lot of different studies back in Michigan--you have to email the affiliate tutor for that department and be like, “hey, can I take this class?” And they're either gonna say “yes” or they're gonna say “no”, and if it's no, it's non-negotiable. Like, you just can't take that class. So, you have to email them, and then if they say “yes”(there's maybe a chance they won't) then they will manually input it on your course registration thing, and then you can register for the class. So, it's quite difficult, and it's not intuitive at all. 

CGIS: I've been told it's very different from the Michigan one. 

EC: It's very different from the Michigan one, because the Michigan one, you can see your classes, everyone makes a schedule on Atlas beforehand. You're like, “This class will be at this time, this time, this time, this time. This is my whole schedule, I can see it, it works." The UK is very different. You have to pick your classes and they don't tell you when they are. So, you'll get your calendar of classes weeks after registration, if you get approved for all of your courses. And that's the other thing, if you don't get approved for all of your courses, because of a time conflict or whatever, there's no appeal process. They can tell you, “no, you can't take this course”, and that's it, which is really strange to me. It was, like, such a difference from Michigan, because I feel like Michigan is instead very much, you're doing the picking, you're scheduling everything, making all the time conflicts work, you're putting yourself on the waitlist for classes, you're trying to find backup options. But at UCL, it’s just: Nope. You just kind of have to pick a few classes and hope that everything settles out on their side, administratively. You don't get backups; the concept of a waitlist does not exist. You just kind of have to have classes that you're okay with if one you pick gets shot down. And I had a class get shot down, I wasn't allowed to take it. It's sort of… it's very difficult, I'm not gonna lie. 

CGIS: I've learned just how incredibly different it is, so in my advising I'm frequently saying, “guys, you don't understand how transparent things are at U-M compared to everywhere else. You can see everything while you're here; you see nothing when you go to the UK.” So, what was the timeline of the actual registration? When did that start, and then when did you find out about the conflicts? Do you remember? 

EC: I feel like I was definitely still in school at Michigan when I registered, because I went in-person to see my advisors. I don't think I got accepted to UCL until late October, and then I'm pretty sure course registration was sometime in early December. So, I had a month between when I got accepted to when I needed to pick my classes. And so, I was doing all the research in between, and I think I only found out that the courses on the math website weren't the same on the course module search engine, like, the same week of my course registration. Then I had to go and be like, “I'm so sorry, but can I come in and see you again?” to my advisors. I think my course registration was on, like, a Wednesday or something, and I had found out maybe, like, the Friday before over the weekend, and I asked my advisor, “can I come see you on Monday or Tuesday, pretty please?” And then the other thing is that it’s London time, right? So, your course registration time is 5 hours ahead, so it might be at 9AM there which is 2AM in Michigan. But because you're not really competing for spots, or at least can't see what's happening regarding seat availability, I don't think I did mine right on the deadline, because there's no point. They're not gonna tell you if the class is open or not. I don't even know if they pick who gets to take the class based on availability, it might be based on seniority. You don't really know. So, I think I did my registration a little bit later, because I was like, “I can't wake up at 3 in the morning for this; I have class.”

CGIS: And then how long until you found out about the conflicts? 

EC: They struck down a class, I think, within the same week. Because once module registration opens, your modules can be changed anytime through, like, the first two weeks of the classes at the start of the semester. So it opened in early December, but you can keep changing it any time through early to mid-January. So that whole time, that whole month, was fixing the courses and getting new approvals. I think it wasn't one of my math ones that got struck down, it was a different one, so then I had to email different departments. And then also, once I got there, I sat in a math class, and I was like, “this is not for me. I can't do this”, because I think it was a differential equations class, and at Michigan, we have two Diffy Q's classes, and there they have four. And I was like, “I don't actually need this for my major”. So I did go to my math advisor, and I was like, “you gotta get me some different math class”, but the tricky thing about UCL is even if you want to take classes outside your Home Department, at least 50% have to be in your department. I didn't want to take that math class, but it had to be another math class, otherwise it wouldn't work. It couldn't even be in something similar like the stats department either; it had to be the math department.

CGIS: What about housing? Did you try applying for university housing? How did the housing end up turning out for you? 

EC: I did apply for university housing, actually, and I did get offered a place. I know that there were a lot of affiliate students--UCL hosts a lot of affiliate students, like, 500 the semester I was there--including people who were there for a full year. So, it's a lot of affiliate students, and I know that not everyone that I talked to got a placement–but I was really lucky and I did. The housing process was fairly simple. They have you fill out the application in a different portal, and you can put preferences and a maximum price limit that you're willing to pay.

But the other thing about UK housing is that it's very uncommon to have a roommate. Most of the housing is single room, which I was kind of shocked, because I lived in a quad my first year at Michigan, and it turned out really well, they're some of my best friends, but then I was telling the UK students about that, they were like, “you had 3 roommates?" Most of the rooms are single, which is, from my perspective, it's a nice thing if you're there only for a semester, because a roommate can, you know, make or break your experience, and then it's just one less stressor that's taken out of the experience. I will say it's different, though, because at Michigan a lot of us live fairly close together, I think, so it's definitely a little lonelier, not coming home to your roommates, your friends; it's just you in your room. 

But I was offered a large single, catered, in Ramsey Hall. Ramsey Hall is great because it's really, really close to campus. However, it was a really old building, and a lot of the issues stemmed from it being a really old building. My room was really big, actually, which was great. Every room has a bed, a closet, a desk, a desk chair, a nightstand, and a sink. You get a sink in your room, which is really nice. But then it has communal bathrooms, so it is kinda like going back to freshman year a little bit--you gotta get your shower shoes and your shower caddy and everything. My bathroom was fairly nice. I lived on a very chill floor, but there were other bathrooms in the building that were pretty rank. But the cleaning staff was really nice. 

As for getting the catered food, it's at very specific times. It's not like a Michigan dining hall. You get breakfast and you get dinner, and breakfast is from 7:15AM to 9:30AM, and dinner is from 5PM to 7PM, and that's it. That's the only time the dining hall is open. So, if you want to eat a late dinner, or eat breakfast later that's not an option. They close in the middle of the day. And then on the weekends, you just get one meal a day, and they call it brunch where the dining halls open from 11:30AM to 1:30PM, or something, and they have breakfast and lunch options. And the other thing that's different from the Michigan Dining Halls is when you go in, you swipe your LoD card, and you get to pick one entrée, and that's it. You can't come back for seconds, you can't do any of that. They have other things that are separate from the entrees that you can get more of, like they usually have a salad bar, or in the mornings they have a yogurt bar, and fruit, and granola, and toast, and all that. And they had coffee machines, which is nice. But, like, you get one entree you get to pick, and that's it. And the food was definitely worse than the Michigan hall. 

CGIS: Because of the time restrictions, did you feel like you ended up having to pay more for food because of going out, on-the-go type food, or bringing more to your dorm than you anticipated? 

EC: I think a little bit, yes. But also I expected to do a fair amount of eating out, because I was in London, and I wanted to try a bunch of different restaurants and things; that's part of the reason why I'm there, is to experience the city. I will say the dinner and stuff was nice when you have a busy day, and you just need to grab something quick. And I think also, it was nice for me because I had a few affiliate students in my building, and we would all eat dinner together, so that was a fun social time. The food was not really good, though, so I felt like sometimes even when I would go to dinner, I would still be hungry later. But it is convenient to have it there, and even in the mornings, they have fruit, and I would just go and grab a banana. So there are, like, ways that you can, like, utilize the dining hall still, but if I had enjoyed the food there more, I would have eaten out less. The British just cook a lot of things in lard, and it makes a few of them quite unpleasant. The dining hall staff were the sweetest ever, they were super nice. They'd be like, “hi, how are you, honey?”. Like, they're really, really, really sweet. I love them. 

CGIS: So, okay, so you got a placement, not everybody gets one. Did you apply right away in order to try to get that? 

EC: I think so, fairly early, as soon as the housing portal opened. Once you get accepted to the UCL program, you have to wait until you're allowed access to the housing portal. I don't remember how long in between, but then after I applied to the housing portal, I feel like I got a placement fairly quickly.  

CGIS: I'm assuming you probably were friends with others who were in different UCL Halls or Independent Housing Options, did they have anything to say in particular about their experience that you think would be relevant? 

EC: Yes. So, with UCL Housing, there are two campuses, UCL Central and UCL East. Most of the undergraduate stuff is on UCL Central. I didn't hear of a single person who had classes on UCL East, but there are dorms on UCL East. So, you could get placed, pretty far away from campus. There are even dorms up in Camden. So, I got really lucky with a placement that was really close to campus, even though it was not as nice of a dorm because I could walk to campus every day. I had a couple friends who were regularly having to tube 30 minutes to class. And the university doesn't cover your transport costs, even though they place you farther away, so that's something to be aware of money-wise. When they offer you a room, you can choose to accept or decline it, you're not automatically bound into a contract just because you did the housing application. But, if you choose to decline, you won't get offered another room. So, if housing is something you're interested in, you can apply for it, see what room you get, but then maybe have a backup option of some other housing if it's not what you're looking for. Because there were dorms that were, like. It is London, though, so prices of independent housing are often pricy. There's pros and cons to each, but I do know that there are dedicated student apartment buildings that you can try to live in that might be a little more social, or they might be a little more affordable. 

CGIS: Any other big things about the experience that you didn't know going in that you wish someone would have told you, or that would be helpful for other students to know about? 

EC: I think a lot of my friends ended up being other affiliate students, and there's a lot of us, like I said. I didn't think I understood quite how many, but most of my friends were other affiliate students. I think it was harder to connect with the students who go there full-time, because of a few factors, like the clubs thing that we were talking about, and just, you know, I'm a junior, so, by the time they're taking the classes that I'm in as well, they have their friend groups and their majors, because you don't really deviate from your major. There’s a good shot that you're with a lot of the same people, and there aren't a ton of different sections in classes with how they do things, so if you're both taking the same course, odds are you'll be in that same class. So, I think it was a little harder to connect with the British students. But I did meet people who were super, super nice, and I had good friends in my classes, so overall most of my friends were affiliates, but I did meet a few local people who were super nice, and we studied together, so that was really fun. Also, advisors can say this a hundred times, but you're not gonna understand until you're there that it really is so hands-off. You gotta do a lot of it on your own. London was a great place, though, just to be in. The city is huge; you could take a train for 2 hours across, and you'd still be in London. So, definitely take a lot of time, especially in those first couple days or weeks when you're there and everyone's excited, get your new friends and go see the city, because there's so much city to see. There's always something going on, always, which is kind of what I loved about London. I was glad that I was in a big city, because it was just really fun. I was there for a fairly long time, and I definitely did not see all of it, at all. 

CGIS: Were there any particularly challenging things that you experienced, whether that was academics, or something identity-based, or even budgeting, that you feel like you weren't anticipating having to deal with? 

EC: I think just the not having a roommate, and I didn't know people on my floor. I had tons of friends in my building, but in Ramsey Hall you’re kind of spread out within the building. I had friends close by, but I think I just wasn't expecting how much it does get a little lonely. At Michigan, I live in a house of 6 girls, and it's five of my best friends, and we're always hanging out, we always cook together, someone's always watching a show that we will then all end up watching together, and I thinkI just didn't have that when I was abroad, and I really missed it. And so that was something I wasn't expecting, because even though I did have friends in my dorm, but just me in my own room, it can be a little isolating, so you have to work a little harder to say, “okay, I'm gonna go out and see my friends”. I had really, really good friends, and we would hang out in each other's rooms, all the time, but I did still miss coming home to my girls, because I just didn't have that same thing. 

CGIS: Were there any other things about the experience that we haven't touched on that you would like to talk about, or, like, make me aware of in any way? 

EC: I definitely would say budgeting in London is a little difficult, because it is an expensive city, for sure. And the pound-to-dollar conversion, especially when I was there, was pretty bad. So, it's just something to be aware of, because I think a lot of people will think the pound is kind of similar to the dollar, and it's not right now. Check when you go, it could change because it's always subject to change but it's definitely different from the US dollar. However, I do think that spending money when you're abroad is worth it, because you'll never get this experience back. Even if you travel like that again, it's not the same as going on a study abroad. So I will say, don't be afraid to go do things, but budgeting is a struggle, for sure.