London Calling for Study Abroad—Even Now
By guest blogger Nik Kachuyevski ’21
One of the main reasons I came to Arcadia was the opportunity to study abroad. I knew that I wanted to go to London before even stepping foot on campus as a first-year student.
Out of the 20 London programs the University offers, the one that stood out most to me was the London Internship Program, through which I’d take three classes and complete an internship in my field, giving me a chance to learn, gain experience, and bolster my resume.
I arrived in London in January 2020 and expected to be there until April. It wasn’t my first time in London, but it was my first time living anywhere other than home for a semester. I thought I’d be more nervous about being so far away, but as I found my apartment in Princess Elizabeth House and started unpacking, it felt like it was exactly where I was supposed to be.
After a week of orientation, I started classes and my internship at Shout Out UK, a social and political enterprise. At the internship I was tasked with writing articles, covering various political and social topics, as well as some administrative work. It was an interesting partnership because I brought an outside perspective to U.K. politics and culture and gained an understanding of how people in other parts of the world think, work, and teach. This global experience will remain with me as I enter the media and communication field after graduation.
Although my semester was truncated because of the pandemic, I will never forget the things I learned or the memories I made. Studying abroad is the single greatest thing I have experienced in my entire life, which I might not have had without the University’s Preview program. In March 2017, I traveled to London for the first time with the “Get Your Groove On” Preview course with Dr. Bruce Campbell, associate professor of Education. During Preview, I learned how to use the London Underground, grew familiar with the layout of the city, and gained a new cultural perspective. Obviously one week, or even an entire semester for that matter, isn’t enough to know the culture of the place, but Preview was a start.
Preview, for me, was just that—a preview to the experience I would have two years later. Without Preview, not only would I have adjusted to London much slower, I’m not sure I would have studied abroad at all.
Who knows? Maybe studying abroad as we had come to know it will be possible again in a year or two. With Preview in your backpocket, the knowledge you gain there could be vital to your experience abroad.
– Nik Kachuyevski
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there are still plenty of options to facilitate the experiences of studying abroad in a virtual setting. While I was in London, I got valuable experience working an internship, and that is still possible through Arcadia Abroad Online. Arcadia is offering online internship programs in Cape Town, Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Rome, and Sydney. Although experiencing the location in which your internship is placed won’t be the same, you can still bolster your resume and get real-world experience working with people from all over the world.
Preview is also being offered virtually for the Spring 2021 semester. Obviously, it would be ideal to travel to the locations offered, but I think gaining knowledge of the world by the means available is beneficial. Preview is an engaging program that offers students glimpses of the world, even if that means those glimpses happen through a virtual lens. And who knows? Maybe studying abroad as we had come to know it will be possible again in a year or two. With Preview in your backpocket, the knowledge you gain there could be vital to your experience abroad.
