Today was the ninth day of our trip. In my opinion, it has flown by! It feels like months ago we all met up in Pittsburgh on that Friday and ate dinner together before staying in the towers. Today was the big day for our group. We had our presentations. But first, we started our day out at Joseph Chamberlain College. This college was created for people who have language barriers and want to pass their GCSE’s, no matter their age. It is located in a low socioeconomic area, and 97% of the students are Pakastani and Bangladeshi. We met Ana outside of our hotel around 8:25 and walked to the bus station together. It was a bit chillier this morning, but luckily, I actually brought a coat today. We ended up standing at the bus station for what felt like an hour (definitely only 15 minutes max) before taking the bus to the college.

I found myself comparing this experience to my high school experience. Walking into the school, there was only one entrance to the entire campus, and it had “bouncers” standing outside of it so that no one could just walk in. When you got into the campus, you needed an ID to get into the building, and if you were a visitor, you needed to get signed in and get a lanyard. It was interesting to see the difference in security between my high school and this college. There was security walking around the entire building and as a visitor, I could not walk around by myself. If I had to go to the bathroom, one of the employees had to walk with me.

After we got a tour of the college and got split into groups, went into two different classes to see how they are taught. They are in their testing stages, so they were just doing revisions. After classes, we talked to some faculty members. We learned about how they help the non-English speakers with a system called ESOL. It is a progress course that teaches them English and literacy, so they can pass their GCSEs.

After we finished up there, we took a bus to BCU where we ate lunch and dropped off our bags before walking to the botanical gardens. We got desserts at the bakery and then walked around the gardens for about an hour. After that, we walked back to the school, where we prepped for our presentations. My group went first, and while I talked a little fast, I think it went well and am glad that it is done and over with. After us, we learned about multiculturalism in healthcare and education, where they talked about the access and quality of healthcare in the US and the UK. I learned about the curriculum difference between the US and the UK. The final presentation was socioeconomic status and how it correlates with healthcare in the US and the UK. I learned about the advantages and disadvantages of healthcare in the US and the UK. Overall, we all did an awesome job with our presentations! I tried Indian food for the first time after our presentations, and I was pleasantly surprised! I really enjoyed the food and got to try a lot of new things. I am interested in checking out two different mental institutes tomorrow.