Undergraduate Study Abroad

The UK has amazing Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine. My favorite is this Lebanese restaurant in Oxford’s Westgate Mall, where I ordered 6 Lebanese chicken wings every week. The garlic sauce on the side was to die for. Somehow, the combination of the garlic sauce and the pomegranate seeds makes the wings salty and tart at the same time. There’s also this Lebanese wrap stand in the heart of Oxford called Najar’s. As a FYI, they have a student discount at the end of each term! 

I took a tutorial called “History of Greek Medicine through Hippocrates,” where I learned about the nature of medicine in 4th-5th century Greece. I learned about how medicine was not standardized like today’s medicine – for instance, there weren’t medical schools in the modern sense. They were more like “centers of thought,” where physicians get patients from family connections, word of mouth, or social status. I also learned more about the patient-physician relationship, such as the physician must present himself possessing the standard of health the patient desires (as to why the patient may come to see a physician). This course also set the foundation for my undergraduate honors thesis. 

Group work wasn’t common at Oxford. I recalled trying to make a group study session, but everyone’s workload and their way of solving them is different. The closest thing to group work I’ve experienced was during tutorials, where each student brings up their own perspective in relation to the topic. However, these were usually larger tutorials (3 students) when tutorials can sometimes just be one-on-one with the professor. 

I volunteered with an organization called MyVision Oxfordshire, where I helped organize walking groups for the visually impaired and blind community in Oxford, UK. My role included giving verbal cues to clients while we navigated uneven pathways. The walks became opportunities not only to support mobility, but to listen. During one walk, I spoke with a client with microphthalmia. After our conversation, I learned that everyone has different relationships with vision loss. As a result, I began asking clients how they preferred to navigate each walk and what support they found most helpful. 

I missed library hopping within the Bodleian Library, the Radcliffe Camera, the Weston Library, and even visiting each of Oxford's college libraries (my favorite was Christ Church). There was something about the atmosphere that helped me grind out a 2,200 word essay within six hours, and it feels like time has flown by – especially if you have your friends nearby working along with you! 

Usually after the matriculation ceremony and during Trinity Term, Oxford students like to go punting on the river. My friends and I went punting several times over Trinity Term, and it was a great bonding experience – and also, of course, learning how to punt!