The first week at Aston has gone quickly. Like at Drexel, the first week classes here were mostly about introduction about the professor and the course. In Aston, there are more big lectures where all students come in and attend than at Drexel. It’s like the Business 101 and 102 of professor Finnin in the freshman year. The exam is mostly important since your final grade will be based on that. The final exam often account for fifty or sixty percent of the final grade. So I highly recommend you to be careful with that if you study here. The student activities here are much better than Drexel’s. There are more than a hundred of societies you can attend. Some of them are even ridiculous like extreme BBQ society, and etc. There are also some societies that help you develop future career like AIESEC, or bright future societies. If you like sport, you can join the different sport societies here. You will have to pay 5 GBP for the membership for the whole year. It’s not really expensive and I believe it’s worth it. Every weekend, the student union organizes the party called “ SICK” for the student at the school bar. You need to buy 4 GBP ticket to get in and buy every drink for just 1.5 GBP each. It’s the best deal in UK I’ve ever seen because it will be much more expensive if you go to the club or even a pub. If you want to go to the club, there are plenty of them on the Broad Street. Some of them are really nice, and you should go there at least one time. The school is near city centre, and they have Bullring mall, which is the biggest mall in Europe. You can find everything there. Behind the bullring centre is china town where you can find almost Asian food in Birmingham. There is also Arcadian centre there where you can go for restaurant, bowling, or casino. The Aston campus is really nice. I recommend you to stay in Lakeside or New Build residence if you want to stay on campus. Stafford tower is much cheaper but it’s really disgusting. You have to share only 1 bathroom with 8 other people, and they don’t have laundry room there.

In the first time I came to England, everything seemed so different for me. May be I was acquainted with everything in the US, so England is too small to me. London is somehow like New York: crowded, fast, and etc. In the first day visit there, my friend took me around to see the Big Ben tower. It belongs to the England house of parliament, so I was not allowed to get in. But it’s so beautiful when looking from distance. The house of parliament stands next to Themes River, and you can see London eye from there. I walked around to enjoy the beautiful scene there, and discovered that the most wonderful view is from the sidewalk of the Themes River. It would be perfect if you walked there in the autumn afternoon. Seeing people running around, seeing the Big Ben tower standing over, and the London eye is spinning all the time. They all made me feel relaxed. It could be the most peaceful place in London. I also spent time visiting Arsenal and Chelsea stadium. Chelsea stadium is not really big. It lies on such a small street of London so that I can never imagine any stadiums can be there. There is a shop inside the stadium where you can buy anything from Chelsea like the cup, T-shirt, sweater, and etc. However, you are not allowed to film inside, and it’s really weird. There are many stadium tours during the day, so you can take a look at the stadium, the museum, and etc. Arsenal stadium is in the North of London where there are less people living there. It’s quite far from London centre so it becomes more peaceful in the afternoon. If there is no match on that day, walking around the stadium is a great experience for you. Some kids play soccer or skateboard around which is very peaceful and relaxed. I also visited China town London where you can have one of the best duck meat in the world. There are many casinos you want to gamble, and some dessert restaurants as well. Next to china town, you can find a big M&M store. It has three big floors and many funny designs of M&M products. They even have an experiment room on the basement where they mix different color of M&M according to the need of customer.