June 2011
6 posts
Day Sixteen: Ketchum Pleon
Wednesday, my class visited Ketchum Pleon, an extremely prestigious and well-known public relations agency. Working for an agency has always been on the top of my career prospects list. I was very interested to hear what our speakers said. They explained the in’s and out’s of life at a PR agency, their different departments, and presented a few case studies. It’s definitely...
Day Fourteen and Fifteen: Fashion!
That whole studying thing had to happen again on Monday. My second and final test was Tuesday. This test was mostly book-focused and was 100 questions. It’s much easier to study when it’s content that interests me. The test went well, but I was happy I wouldn’t have to study anymore! Tuesday evening, a group of us went to a local fashion show. It was put on by a fashion...
Day Thirteen and Fourteen: Rome, continued
Saturday, we mapped out a route and decided to start with the furthest attraction, and end the day closest to our hotel area. Up first: the Vatican! I was so excited. So many people dream and hope to go to the Vatican, and here I am in one of the most historic and amazing places. It definitely does not disappoint. The square was absolutely packed with people, and it was just a regular Saturday. I...
Day Twelve: ROME!
This weekend, I headed to Rome, Italy. I was beyond excited, even at 3:45 am when I got in a cab for my 7 am flight. In Rome, I was meeting my high school friend Matt, who has been studying in Maastricht all semester. I haven’t seen him since January, and this is probably close to the longest amount of time I’ve gone without seeing him. Being able to experience Rome with him only added...
Day Eleven: Hampton Court Palace
Today, we went as a class to Hampton Court Palace. There are 17 people in my class, and we hadn’t done a big group outing with everyone since the London Eye on our first day. One of the girls, Bethany was very excited to go to Hampton Court Palace and invited the whole class. It was fun to do something as a big group! We all boarded the train after class, and it took about a half hour to get...
Day Ten: Harrod's and Imperial War Museum
During class, we had guest speakers Joe Hanley and Anne Kristine Janson, from IBM’s UK External Relations department. Thus far, this is my favorite class we’ve had. Immediately, Mr. Hanley had my attention when he entered our classroom and said, “I like to do these speeches for students because I know I’m sitting in front of my future boss.” He went on to tell us...
May 2011
10 posts
Day Nine: Hyde Park
Tuesday was test day. The test was 73 multiple choice questions (random number choice, but oh well.) based entirely from our lectures and book. Cramming a full 3 semester hour class in three weeks means a lot of information to study! Since we only have two tests, this one covered over 100 pages of reading. It went better than I expected, so I was pleased.
In the afternoon, I explored Hyde Park...
Day Eight: The studying part of studying abroad
Monday, my class was able to visit the Bank of America branch in London. Bank of America’s headquarters were in Charlotte, so the visit was convenient for our professor to set up. I’ll admit that going into this visit, I was a bit of a negative Nancy. I didn’t think Bank of America would be that helpful to my career in PR. Now I have to admit another thing: I was dead wrong....
Day Seven: St. Paul's Cathedral
After a busy week, Sunday was spent relaxing for most of the day. A group of us decided to go to evening mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral—one of the best decisions of the trip thus far. The cathedral was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in my whole life. The outside is gorgeous, but it’s the inside of the cathedral that blew me away. As corny as this sounds, I honestly...
Day Six: Stonehenge and Bath
We decided to take a day trip by bus to see Stonehenge and Bath. I went on the trip with four other students from my class. After about an hour bus ride, we arrived in Stonehenge. It is believed the stones were put into place in about 2500 BC. There are many myths and theories about what Stonehenge was used for, and I learned a lot about these legends through an audio tour of the site. The rocks...
Day Five: Buckingham Palace
On Fridays, we don’t have class, so we decided to go see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. The change happens at 11:30, so normally we are in class during that time. We headed out around 10, and stopped in Trafalgar Square for some photo ops by the gorgeous fountains there. They also have a countdown with how many days, hours, minutes and seconds until the Olympics begin.
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Day Four: The Times of London
My class visited the Times of London! We were given a tour of the newsroom and the facilities, but only after we received our special passes to enter. The building is only about six months old, and the receptionist told us they were very happy about the move, because their old building didn’t have air conditioning! I can only imagine how awful it must have been to be stressed out, writing a...
Day Two and Three!
Yesterday was my first day of class! The class I am taking is Introduction to International Public Relations, and there are about 15 people in it. Our instructor, Dr. Kruckeburg, received his masters from Northern Illinois University (about forty minutes from my house), and his doctorate from Iowa, so he can relate well to me and the other students from Iowa. The rest of the class is from UNC...
Day One: 38 hours and counting
After my short layover in Charlotte, I boarded the plane to LONDON. During the plane ride, I finished the textbook readings for my class, attempted and failed to take a nap, and watched multiple episodes of Entourage and the first part of the seventh Harry Potter movie. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, I landed about 16 hours ago and I STILL haven’t slept! (Don’t worry, Mom- I’m...
Anticipation... and a little anxiety!
Hello all,
Here’s my blog! I leave for London on Sunday, and figured this is the easiest way to keep everyone updated on my three week adventure. At this point, I’m feeling excited and a little nervous. I’ve been looking forward to this trip since I was first notified I was accepted into the program in January, and can’t believe it has finally arrived!
For those of you...