CIEE College Study Abroad in London, England

Being in London was awesome, CIEE does a great job with making academics important but giving you time to have fun and travel. People in the program were awesome, made lots of lifetime friends and memories. If given the opportunity you have to go.

You only have class 3 days a week; two classes each day for 2.5 hours each. Nice thing about London is that travel to other parts of Wurope is pretty easy and you have plenty of options. Only thing about London that kind of sucks is that it takes a long time to get to the airports and the city itself is kind of expense.

As a person who is both incredibly passionate about public health and loves to travel, this program was the perfect mixture of learning and exploration. Delving into the intricacies of the UK's public healthcare system while doing on-site exploration was a one-in-a-lifetime experience. Moreover, the opportunity to gain a global perspective in the field of public health was invaluable. To do so in such a vibrant and lively city like London, has been wonderful. Really, nothing beats learning about public health and then hopping on the underground to go to Borough Markey!

I was very excited for this program prior to arriving in London. Visiting the city was a major bucket list item for me and the CIEE curriculum and program events made my experience so exciting and fun. Our professors hosted several co-curricular activities, particularly the British Museum tour, a bus tour around the city where we learned about the history of the city, a tour of the pubs in the downtown area, and many more. Overall, I am very grateful for the experience that CIEE provided me with. I highly recommend this program to others.

Ciee London has their campus adjacent to Russell square garden in the neighborhood of Bloomsbury. Its the best place for a campus being only a quick walk from covent garden and soho. Its extremely clean and safe compared to other parts of the city. Every time I got off the tube and was walking to class I would think about how lucky I am to study in such a great area.

The classes are educational but don't put too much stress on students while they should be focusing on travel and experiencing life in England. Also flights from London are really easy to get and fairly inexpensive.

The first couple of days in London (Monday-Thursday) went well, but definitely not as planned. From our first step off the plane into Heathrow Airport (London, England) my roommate and I fell very ill. Whatever has been going around, we got it, but luckily it has passed.

In terms of academics the first week included a light scheduled with two classes over the course of Thursday and Friday. The focus of Thursday’s class was on the origins of the NHS, Pre-NHS policies in Britain, and the chaos of medical care that consumed the UK prior to the creation of the NHS. Friday we focused on learning more about how politics and the NHS intertwine, where some would even argue that despite the NHS being a health service it is really a large scale political project.

Amongst our readings and assigned videos, one documentary recounting the history of the founding of the NHS really stood out to me. I will include some of my thoughts and comments on it below along with the video link.

Thoughts:

Over the course of the documentary certain events of the early 19th century were pointed out to highlight the progression of thought in terms of how health was understood and managed amongst different communities in England and eventually in the country as a whole. Progression began with an emphasis on tackling infant mortality rates with midwives becoming more commonplace being granted pensions, salary, and standard of care training. While there were still many issues with the greater integration of midwives and the limits of what they could achieve, overall infantry mortality increased drastically. During this time middle class families held the belief that doctors were the appropriate professional to hire to usher in a new child, however midwives produced greater results due to the overwhelming amount of work doctors faced. Due to the expensive nature and busy schedules of doctors, vulnerable citizens such in low income brackets were left exposed and in 1911 health insurance schemes organized by local government to serve the poor were put into place. That said, unemployment was at an all time high and the unemployed, women, and children were left uncovered by any means of insurance. In fragmented communities this was addressed through medical aid societies where the community members would contribute money into a larger pool to cover medical expenses of community members. While communities like this were effective, pandemics (ie. Diphtheria) still impacted the majority of citizens and it was not until the onset of WW2 that the English central government finally began to address health concerns and initiate a vaccination program. This shift saw the central government's influence extend to monitoring the health of youth in schools and seeking to understand risk factors for health via experimentation at the local level. Finally, in 1948, the central government took the reins and control of public health by implementing the NHS.

What I found most intriguing was firstly the social health experiment conducted at the Paneer health center and the foundational knowledge of risk factors the experiment discovered, and two, the community of Judea where Aneurin Bevan was born and the influence that the medical aid society had on his eventual creation of the NHS. These two points prior to the NHS seem to have heavily fueled the creation of the NHS and informed its understanding and vision of public health.

CIEE was the last of three study abroad program I participated in and it was absolutely my favorite. The staff was incredible and the people in the program are some of the coolest people I have ever met. The group came from all around the states, making it a diverse and fun group. The classes were relevant to the location and the teachers were all experts in their field. I had a class about British theatre and my teacher was a play write in London! It made the class so meaningful. Especially since he was able to bring in Michael Billington to talk to my class (who is basically a celebrity as a theatre critic).

CIEE London was a really great experience! I made phenomenal friends and studied in a beautiful school right on Russell Square. The class was about the NHS in the UK and had some great information; my teacher was also lovely and made it clear she cared about learning with us rather than simply teaching us. We were given plenty of time to travel on our own (I personally went to Paris for a weekend) and the work load wasn't taxing. I wish they would have given me information on the class schedule and housing sooner, but, overall, I had an AMAZING time. I never felt unsafe as a female traveler, even when alone, and there was always something fun to do.

I had a great time studying abroad in london. The range of restaurants and ethnicities really made me feel like I’m abroad. The traveling around london was very easy with the underground and the architecture and sights to see were endless. The only thing I’d say was bad was the amount of coursework which limited my time to have fun and travel. Also the location of the housing was quite far from the CIEE building and I would recommend housing that is walkable from the CIEE building. Finally I think it was overall a very interesting experience which left me with many different perspectives and insights.