King's College London
These past months in Peru, my life has been a roller-coaster of emotions, never stopping for one minute. I had never felt more alive than when I was woken up in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest at half past two in the morning by an earth quake of magnitude 8. Or when I was hiking out of breath in the Peruvian Andes at more than 5,000 meters above sea level.
Both academically and personally I feel I have achieved way more in Lima than in London, the environment being less stressful and more positive. My semester abroad at Universidad del Pacífico was much more enriching than my first year and a half at King’s College. La Pacífico offered me what King’s could not, history courses on Latin America with a non-western point of view. The teaching I’ve had access to here in Lima allowed me to have a bigger picture of our world as well as a better understanding of Latin America. If some of you wonder what it was like to study in Spanish, I weirdly felt more at ease participating in Spanish than in English, people being less judgemental.
At no point during my stay did I felt insecure or home sick, rather I felt warmly welcomed from day one. I felt a sense of belonging that I had never experienced at King’s, I believe the warmness of the Peruvian people makes it way easier to integrate and therefore way harder to leave their beautiful country.
From the very first days I felt completely integrated, the buddy team of the university del Pacífico is incredible. Their integration week far surpassed that of King’s. I mean who could compete with a university that offers salsa classes, surf lessons, ceviche cooking classes and picnics by the ocean? Plus, Peruvians are definitely the best at dancing and throwing the most incredible parties. People have been extremely kind to me, speaking their language fluently definitely makes a difference, I think.
