Greetings from Mexico! My 1-month experience at the Leeds International Summer School was easily one of the best summers of my life. It was a fantastic first time in Europe and it really helped me practice my English, it was a great way of making meaningful friendships and connections, and a great introduction to education in another country. I am usually a rather shy and reserved person, the very idea of being far from home scared me so much that at first, I hesitated to apply to the program. But this is my last year of university and I felt like I needed to experience the outside world before graduating and entering the reality of adult life. It was a great risk for me, I was going completely alone and not really confident in my English skills but I really needed to break out of my shell so I took the plane and flew to the U.K.
I arrived in London and quickly took the train in the morning to Leeds, the city is beautiful and completely different from what I was used to in my hometown. I decided to walk to the university and was delighted to see that I wasn’t the only student walking to the university so I decided to follow the other people to the university. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I did get lost when I got to the campus, I have to admit that the size of it was a bit overwhelming but at the same time I was amazed by how beautiful it is. While I was wandering around the campus I was happy to see all the bunnies running around the grass and seeing all the students interacting with one another, it made it all so welcoming and somehow it made me feel at home since my home university also has several animals running around.
Fast forward to the start of the first module, my first class was Business in the Music Industry with Professor Silviu Cobeanu. This class was a really nice overview of the music business, the professor really showed his expertise in the field and made the course easy to understand, I study music back home but in my degree we don’t learn much about the business side of music so I appreciated him making the course interactive and easy to follow. My second module was Introduction to Digital Photography with Professor Michael Anderson. I picked up a camera for the first time a week before going to the U.K. so this was an excellent way of learning how to use it and developing a love for photography. I mainly wanted to take this course to help me in my music creation process and find something else to draw inspiration from, but really, what gave me more inspiration was all the memories I made during this summer.
Every single friendship I made during the month meant so much to me so I really struggled to say goodbye to everyone once it was time to part ways. But I stay positive since I have that, if faith wants it, we will meet again in the future! So far I think it’s safe to say that small pieces of my heart now reside in different parts of the world where all my friends live.
Leeds Uni Bound 