Speaker 1: Hi everyone and welcome back to my channel. I am back in America now and if you've been keeping up with my past few videos you would know that I have been studying abroad in London for like the past month or so now and I had such an amazing time there and if you want to see what I did and hear more about all that stuff then be sure you go watch all the vlogs that I put up because I uploaded four of those and I'll put links to all those down below You can kind of like see what I did the whole time while I was there and where I went on the weekends and stuff Like that so make sure you go check those out, but in this video today I'm basically going to be compiling a bunch of tips that I have for anyone who is studying abroad. Obviously study abroad trips are gonna differ depending on where you go, what kind of program you go with, you know, if you go with the school or not, whatever it is. And so these are just tips that I gathered from my own personal experience and maybe other people would disagree with these tips. But from my experience, these are things that I think would be helpful for anyone who is planning to study abroad. Also, if you have ever studied abroad and you have any tips for anyone else who's interested, interested, comment those down below because I'm sure we'd all love to hear them. Alright, so I have a little list on my phone here and they're just kind of in a random order, but let's see. The very first one is to bring a duffel bag or a carry-on for your weekend trips. So especially if you're studying abroad in Europe, it's so easy to travel and take trips on the weekends and obviously wherever you're going you're probably gonna be bringing a really large suitcase, like one huge one that has the majority of your stuff in it, but even if you don't really think you need the extra space, which I did because I packed a lot of stuff, but even if you don't think you need more room, I definitely recommend bringing either a small carry-on bag or a backpack or some kind of duffel bag that you can bring with you on weekends because you're not gonna want to carry a huge suitcase with you when you travel somewhere. The next tip I have is to learn how to use the public transportation system because it really is not that hard once you get the hang of it. I've grown up in suburban life in Birmingham, Alabama my whole life. I've never used public transportation really and I was able to figure it out in London. They call it the tube. It's like the underground system there and after just a couple days it's really easy to figure it out and that's typically the easiest way to get around when you're in big cities so I would definitely recommend trying to figure that out the first couple days while you're there. Going along with that you should use Google Maps because it has a lot of cool features and you can download instructions and stuff in case you don't have Wi-Fi. That's really helpful and on Google Maps you can even use the transportation part of it which is really cool so it'll tell you like which routes to take on the subway so it makes it a lot less confusing. The next thing I would recommend is trying to teach yourself some of the currency before you get over there because what we figured out in my group was that it can be kind of overwhelming when you're trying to pay in cash and you don't know what any of the coins mean and you can't tell them apart from each other and there's a long line of people that you're trying not to annoy. So if you have time like on the plane ride over there and you can get some cash in the airport try and do that and look at all the coins and teach yourself what each of them means and what the bills are so that way when you go somewhere and you're trying to pay you don't look like you're super confused. So the next thing that I want to talk about is budgeting and this is something that I tried to do before I went on my trip and that was just to budget out how much money I thought I might be spending on meals every day and obviously it depends on what kind of program you go with because you know some programs might give you like a meal card and they might pay for the majority of your meals but on my program we had to pay for about two-thirds of our meals like with cash out of pocket. So what I did was I literally just googled like the average cost of lunch and dinner in London and obviously that's not going to be completely accurate but basically I tried to google that, average it out, and then multiply it by how many days I was there and that gave me a set amount that I was like okay this is what I might be spending on food and what I should expect to possibly have to spend. That way you don't just get there and you're like doling out cash all over the place and you can even like go grocery shopping stuff like that to try and budget and save money because food can add up very quickly. Next I would recommend that you try and find a good study spot because yes you were abroad to have fun but you're also studying abroad so you have to study somewhere. We found it pretty difficult to find like a good coffee shop in our area that we could just go study at so we ended up having to study at our library most of the time just on the campus where we were staying but if you can I would recommend trying to walk around and finding like a nice library that you like or maybe even a park if you like to outside just find somewhere that you can go and get work done. We took so many trains when we were in London. I feel like almost every other day we were taking a long train ride somewhere and so I would highly recommend always having something to do with you. For me, I was taking a lit class and so I had a lot of books to read so I was constantly reading books on the trains and planes that we went on. Or I would bring my laptop and try and edit a video but just have something that you can do because if you don't you're gonna feel like you're wasting so much time. Next are two things that I would recommend investing in. First of all is a good pair of headphones. I learned this the hard way. My really cute like pink sparkly headphones broke while I was over there and that was really sad and for like two days I didn't have any headphones and I didn't like that because I was on a train and I couldn't listen to any music so I had to go buy some new headphones so I would definitely recommend bringing a nice pair with you. I mean maybe not something like super nice because you don't want them to get lost or broken or anything like that but just a good pair of headphones that will fit down in your bag and you can bring with you everywhere. And I'd also recommend investing in a comfy pair of shoes. On my trip we did so much walking, like some days we would be walking more than like 12 or 13 miles which is literally half a marathon, that's kind of crazy to think about. And I had a lot of comfy like sneakers with me and I never got blisters, my feet never really bothered me that much, so that was really nice. I would definitely recommend getting some good walking shoes. Next, I think that everyone should document their study abroad trip in some kind of way. For me, I was making videos. Obviously, I vlogged the trip and I'm also making a little travel journal which I'm gonna be sharing in an upcoming video if you're interested in that. But either take pictures everywhere or take videos everywhere or have a journal with you at all times and journal like everything you do. You just want to document everything in some way so that you don't forget all the memories you make. Next tip kind of goes along with the very first thing I talked about but that is to travel while you're there, especially if you're in Europe. I feel that's kind of the most common thing for Americans to do is go study abroad in Europe and once you're over there it is so easy to travel from country to country. You can get really cheap plane rides and train tickets and it's so easy to travel so definitely take advantage of that and try and go as many places as you can. But on the flip side of that definitely still get to know the area that you are staying in. That's something that I didn't do as much as I wish I would have looking back because I had two free weekends and I traveled places both of those weekends when I could have stayed in London and like done more London things because at the end of the trip I realized that there was still some stuff in London that I hadn't seen yet. So make sure that you've seen like your whole area and that you really feel like you're immersed in the culture there but if you have time definitely travel as well. Alright and the very last tip that I have is to just try new things. I know that sounds so cliche but when you're abroad and experiencing a new place and a new culture there are just so many new opportunities and foods and places presented to you every single day, so say yes to everything. I mean, not everything. You don't want to do crazy stuff, you know what I'm saying? But say yes to things that maybe you wouldn't say yes to at home and try new things and really just have the best time ever because studying abroad is so much fun. But it definitely takes getting out of your comfort zone to have the most fun, I would say. Alright, so those are all the study abroad tips that I have. Again, like I mentioned at the beginning, if you have studied abroad and you have any other tips that I didn't cover in this video, comment those down below. Also, I'm planning to do a Q&A about my study abroad soon so if you have questions about my study abroad you can also leave those comments down below and I will try my best to get back to you guys. If you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and again be sure to go watch my past study abroad videos because if you liked this one then you'd probably like seeing those as well. And I love you guys so much, thank you all for watching and I will talk to you next time. Bye.