life

Manchester – the global city

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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!

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Northern Quarter

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St Peters Square

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University in September

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The University of Manchester

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Oxford Road

All photos made by myself, please do not copy or use.

Summer in the City!

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It’s been so long since I’ve last written. Manchester seems both like just yesterday and like forever ago; I completed my spring semester, and it was definitely the best year yet overall. Now, I’ve just settled in to my apartment in Boston for the summer! I am so happy to finally be living here and working here. Given that I’ve spent my entire life frequently visiting Boston with my family, I’ve come to love the city, and it has become familiar to me on many levels. My sister goes to Boston University, I love the Italian atmosphere in the North End, and it makes me feel more alive to live by the ocean.

I am so blessed to have an internship in such an exciting city. I’ll be working on medical writing and editing at a very inspiring and successful pharmaceutical company, and this is the perfect time for me to learn about awesome career opportunities. It’ll be different than simply learning about career paths during my previous years at Colgate; this is so much more real because I will be graduating in 2019. Exactly a year from now, I’ll (hopefully) be settling in to begin my official first job, or perhaps graduate school.

The other interns are from all over the country and world. I am definitely looking forward to meeting new people and networking. Here are some of my goals for the summer:

  1. Always be confident.
  2. Work like Jason. (Jason is a guy from my dad’s work who is an incredible worker, always asking what else he can do, always contributing ideas for new ways to move forward).
  3. Don’t worry about anything.
  4. Fearless pursuit of excellence.
  5. Live in the moment, enjoy the city!!
  6. Write more.
  7. Be kind to yourself.
  8. Always go above and beyond, be mature, dependable, and responsible.
  9. Be a self-sufficient and independent worker, but also work well in a team.
  10. Learn new things each day in order to prepare for an exciting career.

I think ten is a good number, and this is a good variety of goals. Here are ideas of places to go this summer and things to do, which I’m sure will grow as time goes on:

  1. The Lawn on D at night.
  2. Eat lobster tails from Bova’s outside!
  3. Read outside, or even in the Boston Public Library.
  4. Walk around Boston Common (or have a picnic).
  5. See a baseball game at Fenway.
  6. Eat more lobster rolls.
  7. Go to the Mapparium.
  8. Eat a Boston Cream Pie.
  9. Gym membership at the Fit Rec.
  10. Watch a performance by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company.
  11. Go to the ICA.
  12. Go to Museum of Science Planetarium.
  13. Go to Museum of Fine Arts.

I can’t wait to go to at least a handful of those places, and I know that time will go by faster than I expect. I’ll sleep soon, but I have a good feeling about this summer and my first day! I’ll write more later.

A Month Left

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As I sit in Kro Bar, a cozy restaurant/bar that has easily become one of my favourite spots in Manchester, two men sit down at the end of the table next to me.  My interest was piqued at the mention of research grants.  It appears to be an interview about some type of research job.  There’s a mention of biology, biophysics, gene regulation, cancer, cell behaviour.  The older man starts talking about what his lab at Yale is like.  I listen to their conversation, unable not to.

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