First Encounters at London Met

On Monday, I went to my first class at London Met. My campus is City, which means that it's based in the official "City" of London, not Greater London where my flat is. Moorgate is surrounded by business offices, and it's a really interesting dynamic. Instead of the more casual people I've seen walking around Regent's Park, everyone is in suits and look quite official.
Only 4 other people showed up to the seminar for my class (Industrial Economics), out of an expected 16. My professor was a little miffed about that, but carried on with the discussion at 12:00 promptly. I can't place her accent. She ran over the syllabus, and I'm really excited for the semester. We have a big coursework project where we have to analyze the market concentration of Hollywood, and the competitiveness of the market. (Yes, it's nerdy. It's also awesome.) My grade is determined by only two grades, the coursework and a final. I'm leaving early, so I'm going to have to take an alternative assessment for the final. I'll talk to her about that next week.

The hour between the seminar and the lecture, I walked around the City. I was amazed to look at the people going to lunch. Compared with my personal experience of the "Business World", it was so low-key. I noticed that a lot of people were walking in pairs and absolutely no one was on their phones. It seemed that when they take a break for lunch, they aren't still tied to the office. They can actually take a break. It's amazing. I wish that I could have done that last summer, even as an intern.

Lecture was filled with people who knew each other (three years in an Economics program would do that to you), so I didn't have many people to talk to except for one guy from my seminar. My prof went over the syllabus again, and added that the coursework was an optional group project. This seems to be an amazing opportunity - I can meet with other people in my class, and also get a better feel for how work is done here. I am a little worried about how to write papers here, as the standards definitely seem to be different than in America.

She also added "You are all adults, you can decide how you want to approach the coursework, and who to work with." This was also amazing to me. In America, I feel like all of my projects were either individual or group - no exceptions. Having the ability to choose how you wanted to is awesome. Related is the reading list. They give you a list of books to browse, not specific chapters to read. It places the responsibility of working and how to study on the student, not the teachers' instructions. I love the responsibility that's been placed on me.

The rest of the lecture was pretty consistent with what I was familiar with, but I'm still so psyched about the chance to work in a class that I'm fully excited for. Also, I have the chance to meet British students in my class. How great could is this!?