The Real London Experience

I studied abroad through the IES direct enrollment program at Queen Mary college in the East End of London. I wanted to determine whether or not I want to study abroad in the UK for my postgraduate degree and also generally experience London life.

As for the East End, it is a wonderfully diverse area. A five minute tube ride west and a bit of walking, and you arrive at Spitalfields market, a historic place that has been--like a lot of London--modernized to reflect the fashion forward culture of the citizens. On Sundays, if you walk through the market and down a few back streets, you arrive at--my favorite place--the famous Brick Lane market, with the best food I had in London, and lots of vintage shopping opportunities. A two minute tube ride east from Mile end, and you arrive at the Stratford mall, which is a facility built especially for and adjacent to the 2012 London Olympic Park.

In regards to the Queen Mary campus itself, there are two Queen mary College locations: the Mile End campus and the Whitechapel campus. I have only ever been to the Mile End campus, but I can say that it is very well integrated into the urban landscape around it. The campus itself gives the appearance to its students; it would be possible for a student to live within the contained area of the campus without leaving if they really really wanted to. There are several buildings where classes are held, but generally, the different buildings house different school departments. The classrooms varied from large lecture rooms that could contain, probably, a good 150 people, to small classrooms where a class of maybe 15 people at most could fit into. It took me approximately 10 minutes to walk from one end of the campus (where the dorms are) to the other (where I had a class), and most of the non-academic facilities (coffee shops, the campus pub, the cafeterias, the bookstore, the campus corner market, etc.) were within this area. The most interesting feature of campus, for me, however, was the Nuevo Burial ground, which is really just a graveyard that just so happens to be in the middle of campus. I also appreciated the close proximity to the Mile End tube station, which made it easy to get anywhere I wanted or needed to off-campus.