While I would have never guessed this at first, Pitt was a stepping stone for my life here in London. For those of you who read my first blog post, you would know that I’m from the suburbs of Annapolis, Maryland. When I was deciding on a college, I chose Pitt because it was the step in the direction I wanted to take my life because it was so different from my entire life up to that point. It was bigger and louder than where I grew up. It challenged me and admittedly intimidated me a little and that was just what I wanted. 

Being in London reminds me of those feelings all over again – the unfamiliarity, the adjusting, the challenges, and nervousness. London feels like a bigger and louder version of Pitt in many ways. One of the things that I immediately noticed about Pitt and that really drew me to it was that it was a community of every type of person one can think of. Despite being a PWI, Pitt is a melting pot of students with different backgrounds, personalities, identities, and stories. 

London feels exactly like that on a bigger scale. I’ve always heard that London is an “international city,” but I never really understood why until I saw it firsthand. Upon the first few days of my arrival here, I noticed the diversity of the people that live here. While walking around the city and taking the tube from place to place, I saw people of every color and heard a variety of different languages spoken. English is not many Londoners’ first language and though this shouldn’t have been surprising to me, the image of the London that I grew up with made me react otherwise. 

Even at my internship, which is a small digital marketing agency with only a few employees, I saw just how diverse a city London was. The CEO of the company is Polish-American, one of the employees is Greek-Lebanese, and another employee is Indian. This amazed me greatly because it helped me open my eyes a little more to the world outside the bubble I live in.

Now, it wouldn’t be exciting if London was exactly the same as Pitt, but on a bigger scale. Despite the similarities of the city environment, the lifestyles here are very different from what I’m used to. I’m definitely no stranger to having to find a good work-life balance with my busy schedule back home between my two jobs, extracurriculars, and a rigorous academic course load. I am a college student after all, so I thought I was used to exhaustion, but I’m feeling exhaustion to a whole new level here. I think part of it is my commute to both work and classes. While neither is particularly long – each only about 30 minutes, the constant moving from place to place and hopping on and off the tube throughout the day is something I’m not used to and is playing a role in this exhaustion that I feel. This has made me realize that at Pitt, I take for granted the close access I have to all central parts of my life; classes, work, extracurriculars are all within a 10 minute walking distance of my apartment. I also think that some of this exhaustion could be attributed to my awareness of my limited time here in London that I end up hustling every day to squeeze in as many experiences as I possibly can

Despite all of this, I feel that I have gained so much from this experience so far that I am almost glad to be exhausted; I feel accomplished. In the four weeks that I’ve been here, I have tried more new things than I have in an entire semester. I have been challenged and I have persevered through them. Though I’m sure this exhaustion will only build in the coming weeks, I feel confident that over time, the exhaustion will fade away and I will look back on this experience and only remember the wonderful and invaluable experiences I have had.