global

By Luna Sickau, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany

When you’re going abroad, you always inform yourself about the place which is your home for a couple of month. You may google it, check the wikipedia entry or ask your friends and family. You may also visit the city before you’re even decide to apply for a university exchange. But you’ll never know if you made the right choice before you start living in the city and start to live a daily life there. If you’re reading this and already know that you will come to Manchester – CONGRATULATIONS! You made the right choice.

My name is Luna, a 21-year-old girl from Düsseldorf (Germany) and decided to come to the University of Manchester before finishing my bachelor class of Social Science at home. I fell in love with this amazing city one year ago, when I made in internship in Manchester for a month in the summer of 2017.

Now, more than a year later I am finally back and able to experience Manchester for half a year. I am living in a private flat, shared with international students (I would always recommend staying in a private house rather than living in a small and expensive student accommodation) and I want to give some insights of my daily life and the tell you how it is to be a part of this vibrating city – the city of Manchester.

Manchester is a colourful and busy city with endless opportunities and places to go. Since the day of my arrival, I felt welcome, accepted and appreciated. You’re never alone and even if you feel so, there are so many places to go (in Uni and everywhere else in the city). The people here are friendly, open and helpful (even though I was a bit confused that the bus driver called me ‘love’ on the first day).

The organisation of the University was brilliant, I already got loads of information at home and the welcome week is a must for everyone who’s coming over for their studies. Luckily, I found my two besties on the first day of the welcome week during a campus tour and we started to go to events and parties during freshers week. After spending the first days (and nights) in the city, you’ll get to know other students and the most popular places to go. Even if you experienced the freshers flu week (week 2), it is easy to catch up with your courses and the teachers and tutors are willing to help students if there are individual problems. At the beginning I was a bit confused because of my timetable (as I didn’t have as many courses as I normally have at home), but the workload might be higher than at home and before the first due dates after reading week, you’re happy to have enough time to focus on essays and catching up with readings.

Enough of first impressions – the next post will have loads of photos and tips where to go and what to do. MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME IN MANCHESTER!