Goodbye America. Hello England!

Hello,

Wednesday is the big day, so I thought I would give you an update about how everything is going. I recently received my visa in the mail, along with a few non-important things like my birth certificate and my passport. Needless to say, it was somewhat of a relief. I got some currency exchanged, so now I actually have British pounds-exciting! I think it's going to be difficult working with a new currency along with a new scale for temperature.

My packing is going alright. I am bringing two suitcases. One is already packed (and is extremely heavy) and the other one is mostly packed, just need to put a few more things in there. Once I get to England, I'm planning on visiting some friends for the first couple weeks before I get to Manchester.

I have orientation on the 16th of September and that's the day when I'm moving in to Ashburne Hall. It's on the Fallowfield portion of the campus, which is about 15 minutes away from the main bit of campus by bus. Fallowfield reminds me of North Campus at the University of Michigan. It's kind of further away from Central Campus, but is nice because it has more trees and the rooms in the dorms are a little bigger. I have a single room, which is fantastic. I've had to live with roommates since freshman year, so I'm really looking forward to having a room of my own. I will still be sharing a bathroom with some other people, but it will be so nice to have my own room. That's it for now, my next post will be written once I'm actually there!!! Yay!

Hi!

Hello, My name is Erica Tiedeman and I am a Junior at the University of Michigan studying Chemical Engineering. I will be attending the University of Manchester through an IPE (International Programs in Engineering) study abroad program starting this September through June 2011. The University of Manchester is in Manchester, UK and is Britain's largest single-site university, according to it's website.


While I am there, I will hopefully be taking chemical engineering classes for the most part, as well as some history and material science courses. However, I still don't know what specific classes I will be taking. My program requires a minimum of 15 hours of study each week. Along with studying and taking classes, I would like to do a bit of traveling around Europe on weekends and holidays. I have never been out of the country besides Canada and a few countries in Central America and the Caribbean.

In preparation for my trip, I am currently working on my visa application and buying a few things like a converter, and adapters. I'm sure that in August I will be busier with packing my things. My next blog will be posted about a week before I leave and I'm sure I will have a lot of questions and anxiety in packing my suitcases for 10 months. I'm so excited already!