London

I went to London last Wednesday for my offer-holder open day at UCL... Is it really cheesy to say that I fell in love with London all over again? (Yes.)

The day didn't start off as planned though, as I found out that my train to London got cancelled in the morning. Cue me stressing out and trying to prevent the oncoming panic attack that I really didn't want the rest of the population to witness. Miraculously, I managed to stay quite calm, even though I was anything but calm! Once I'd gotten to Birmingham New Street, I managed to locate a friendly member of staff who told me that there was a replacement service from Moor Street. (...Aaaaand breathe!) I honestly wanted to hug that woman, but luckily for her, I exercised some restraint and hurried along to Moor Street station.

*Note to all: ALWAYS arrive at train stations at least 20 minutes before the departure time, just in case you find yourself in a situation like mine and end up having to walk to a different train station, or have to buy another ticket or something.

So luckily, I managed to get myself on a train to London at long last! And as luck & coincidence would have it, I actually got the same train as my friend, with whom I then spent the morning in London! We arrived at Marylebone station and just walked round London, eating our lunch in the lovely Regent's Park. Since it was early on a Wednesday morning, it was pretty quiet, which is quite a rarity in London. Then we hung out in Waterstone's near Euston and then headed to our Open Day at UCL's Economics department.

Upon arrival, we sat in a small lecture room and tried to make eye contact with other students who had also received Economics offers at UCL. I finally managed to pluck up the courage to talk to a few people and soon after, we were given a talk about Economics at UCL and later had refreshments and got to chat with some current students and lecturers. Finally, we got to have a tour round the UCL 'campus' and got to look round the main quad and the iconic UCL main building! All in all, I got to meet some really lovely people and honestly just fell in love with the place. The atmosphere, location and general feeling at UCL was incredible. The course is pretty much perfect and suits my interests down to the ground. Plus, the students are all so diverse and come from different backgrounds, which is something that I'm really looking forward to at university; the social opportunities and active student union also sounded great. Overall, I could really picture myself getting involved with everything that UCL has to offer and really enjoying my time there!

After the open day, I headed out to meet a friend who is currently studying Biochemistry at UCL! We hung out near UCL and then headed to UCL's Print Room cafe, which is a really cool cafe with decent priced coffee (by London standards!) It was so good to have a big catch up with her for a couple of hours. But before I knew it, it was time to head back to Euston station and get the train back home. I don't think I've even been more sad to leave London before... Now that I'm at a point where it's quite likely that I'll be living in London next year, I just love it even more. Hopefully I'll be back there soon enough.

^^^ London ^^^

^^^ Coffee with friends at The Print Room cafe! ^^^

So, that was my UCL open day experience! I hope you liked it :-) I have some more uni updates to share with you next time. Hope you're all well & speak to you all soon!

Chloe. X