By Danny Wong

I will miss the new friends I have made while here in Greece. I enjoyed meeting all of the Greek students and learning more about their culture from them, while also teaching them about the United States.

Conversing with them every day made it easier to pick up the language and communicate with Greek people at stores and restaurants.

Even though I may not ever see my Greek friends again after coming home, I am grateful for the time I spent getting to know them and plan on keeping in touch.

Also, the people I will miss even more are my new friends I made from the U.S., who were in my study abroad program. There are 48 of us from all parts of the country, and most of us came here without knowing a single other person.

After living and going to school with them every day for four months, it will be very difficult to say goodbye at the end of the semester. I also plan on keeping in touch with them and hopefully even meeting up with those who live close by.

If I had not studied abroad in Greece, I would not have had the opportunity to meet and form strong relationships with all of these people. They each helped make my study abroad experience memorable, and I will miss them all.

By Lauren Davis

By Jeremy Koufakis

The most meaningful part of my time abroad was definitely learning to become independent. Overall, I am a pretty independent person, but I was never used to traveling alone in a place I didn’t know or couldn’t speak the language of.

It’s really hard to navigate the streets of Seoul since there are no real streets. Everything is just connected with each other with no signs or street names. Not being able to speak the language definitely deterred my exploration of the city.

Even though I still don’t know much and we are forever warned of traveling alone, I finally built up the courage to do just that. No more waiting for people or staying out later than I want to. I can finally take a cab alone or ride the train alone and be okay with it.

Question: “Tell us something about your host country that only a local would know.”

By Danny Wong

By Eric Mee

By Lauren Davis

By Corinna Horelik

“Describe a professor or project that has taught you about history, politics or business from an international perspective.”

By Danny Wong

Here in Buenos Aires, I am taking a class related to anthropology and we recently had a discussion about the problems with anthropological studies. We discussed how there were fundamental problems with how studies were conducted because of the different biases that early anthropologists had while they were observing a foreign culture. Through our upbringing, we develop our own set of beliefs, rituals and values that tend to seem more valid than other ideas that might conflict with our own. This was especially true during imperialist times when anthropologists observed colonized societies since they brought their own biases thinking that anything “western” was often better than how the local societies they observed conducted themselves.

This made me realize that history’s interpretation has always and continues to be skewed by those who take record of history’s events. For example, when imperialists conquered African societies, they criticized the use of witchcraft and violent punishment, but without having immersed themselves in the local customs and tried appreciating the fundamental values that those natives grew up with, witchcraft and violent punishment just seemed wrong. Most people tend to “get things twisted” when they visit a foreign land and find fault in the way locals operate, so representations of current and past events are often biased and may be hard to look at from an “international perspective.” I’ve learned that before I can make any close-to-accurate statements about how the Argentines view history, politics or business, I’ll probably need to stay in Buenos Aires (and travel around the country) for more than the four months that I am studying here.

By Jessica Giunta

By Chris Bruce

By Lauren Davis

A day in the life of a typical student from Manchester, England would include getting up in the morning (or afternoon depending on their schedule) and getting ready for classes. Most classes at my university have one two-hour-long lecture per “module,” or class as we call it.

These lectures can be filled with hundreds of students; something we are not familiar with at Bentley. It is then supplemented with a seminar or tutorial that has anywhere from five to fifteen students.

These are to ensure that students understand the material and have the opportunity for more one-on-one learning. This combination of a lecture and a seminar applies to most classes.

After classes, students typically cook their meals in their flats (or have school-catered food if they have a meal plan). On many nights of the week, the students go out to bars and clubs until the early hours in the morning. They love to party.

The weekends for local students are saved for reading and studying for the next week’s classes, or travelling home. For exchange and study abroad students, the weekends are often filled with exciting trips around Europe.

Overall everything happens around the same time as it would back in the States. It isn’t like Italy where dinner is commonly served after 8 p.m. or other countries that start their day off a little later.

It seems pretty similar to what I am used to at Bentley: you get up, go to class, have a meal, relax, and do it all over again the next day!

Something that is extremely different, in my opinion, is when students go out to party. They spend their nights during the week drinking and staying out late (almost every week night), and then on the weekends, the whole campus gets relatively quiet.

Yes, at Bentley there are nights during the week when students go out to Moody Street and other local bars, but we definitely party on the weekends too!

I feel that many things are the same from my experience in the U.S. Students like to be social and actively participate in clubs or sports. Most students have jobs and they study hard and take their courses seriously.

By Danny Wong

By Danica DeVito

Recently, we celebrated Tsiknopempti, which is like a mix between Halloween and Fat Tuesday. It is the height of the Carnival season in Greece, and traditionally on this day, local people eat meat in anticipation of the 30-day Easter Fast that follows.

Classes were still in session on this day, but we had traditional Greek dancers perform for the students in the afternoon which was interesting to watch, and a bunch of students even got to join in!

Later that night, our school threw a party in the cafeteria for all of the students. Everyone dressed up in crazy costumes and we celebrated with food, drinks and music. Afterwards, we rode the bus downtown where there were parades being held all night.

I enjoyed celebrating this holiday not only because of the parties and parades, but especially because it was the first Greek holiday I was able to experience while being here.

By Brady Del Pozzo

By Corinna Horelik

At the welcome cocktail event, I met a first year from Sydney, Niamh (pronounced Neev). From the first week on, we began to spend a lot of time together. Immediately, it was easy to pick up differences in the Australian culture and we all quickly learned that a “backwards peace sign” is one of the most offensive gestures you could possible give. We then had the chance to experience all the native foods that we would not have otherwise picked up at the market like: Vegemite, Tim Tams, Milo, Lamingtons, pavlova, Weet-Bix, Anzac biscuits and meat pie.

In addition, Niamh began to drive a few of the Bentley students to unique places including Springbrook National Park where we encountered a python about to devour a possum, and had the chance to see the glowworms in the cave underneath the Natural Bridge. We also have had the opportunity to go on adventures such as driving to the beach to watch the sun rise and driving on the left hand side of the road, with future plans to go to Sydney next weekend, Byron Bay, Moreton Island, a footie match, Currumbin Park and the Australia Zoo. I know that Sydney will be an especially great experience, because we’ll have the chance to get the most of the local culture instead of participating in the touristy excursions while we stay with Niamh’s best friend right inside the city.

I also thought it was interesting how the influence of the media has such an impact on Australians’ awareness of America. It makes our accents noticeable, but they do not sound as different as we perceive the Australian accent to be. The pronunciation of words has sharpened vowels; they use their mouth as little as possible when they speak, and there are “heaps” of Australian words they commonly use such as: Maccas (McDonalds), jumper, dodgy, keen, reckon, bottle-o, lu, brekkie, petrol, sunnys, bonza, ripper and true blue.

During all the time we spend together, she always mentions how the foreign students would point out differences that never even came across to her as strange in her entire life. She was also especially surprised how many of our goods are much less expensive in the states (besides the fifty cent Maccas’ ice cream cone of course) with our minimum wage about half of Australia’s. Thankfully, she enjoys our company and loves going out and exploring places in Australia she says she would never go if she didn’t have a better reason to.

As I mentioned in my last blurb, people in Belgium are extremely reliant on mass transportation. This is something that is new to me, as growing up in a suburb of New York meant I relied on cars, not buses and trams.

Last Monday, there was a nationwide strike for all mass transit employees. While most business and companies gave their employees the day off, my school did not. Since taxis were almost impossible to track down, I was forced to walk 90 minutes each way to class.

While in the grand scheme of things, I realize that my problems are minimal to that of others, but it was inconvenient to say the least. Mass transit is not only completely unavailable at times, but it is also often unreliable as well.

Trains scheduled to depart at 8:10 will depart five minutes before or after that time. If you’re five minutes too late or early, you’ll either be waiting longer for a train or will have already completely missed it.

I had an internship interview last week that I missed because the train came 15 minutes early instead of its intended time. Had I been in the U.S., I would have had a car and would have made the interview.

However, here you must work with “flexible” transportation methods and lots of people who don’t speak English and therefore aren’t too helpful with directions.

Other than that and the occasional pick pocket, I’m enjoying Belgium thus far. I would recommend it to anyone who loves chocolate. And of course, beer.

Glasgow, Scotland is very similar to Boston, a city I grew up with. In terms of size, geography and history, they seem to complement each other very nicely. Aside from getting used to a Scottish brogue and figuring out which coins are worth what, the adaptation into life in Glasgow has been fairly simple.

The transition to living in a city, rather than a closed, suburban campus like Bentley is something that isn’t unique to Glasgow, but rather an adaptation anyone would have to deal with when going to a new place.

For me, the weirdest thing I’ve encountered is the class structure. Rather than taking a curriculum with requirements across the disciplines, students take one, two or three areas of study.

Of those areas of study, students do not take any other classes. Someone might be studying English Literature and English Language and would never take a science course. In that case, you really know everyone within your discipline, as each course usually only has one lecture section, which separates throughout the week into smaller seminars and tutorials.

I have a loaded schedule, comparatively, with four classes this semester. Three is typical for most University of Glasgow students. This structure, however, seems to be unique for Scotland alone, not even the whole United Kingdom.

There is not much in the way of homework. Every week, I can expect to have a few articles for my film class and an assignment for my photography class, but nothing else. There is not any pre-reading, periodic essays, quizzes, homework or the dreaded online worksheets.

Here, your grade is dependent upon a final exam and a midterm essay. The essays are only one or two thousand words – not even a term paper that might be expected.

With that amount of free time, people go out a lot more. I do not know how they have the energy to! An evening starts at 10 or 11, going until the wee hours of the morning. Students usually go out several nights each week, but don’t go out on the weekends because it is more expensive.

I have still to determine whether this course structure leads to students more or less invested in their studies. People love to talk about their courses, yet I find little interaction within discussion seminars. It will be interesting to see how the campus changes around midterms and finals. Will it quiet down like Bentley? Or will the carefree attitude continue?

By Meagan Pratt

The most shocking difference I have experienced while in Singapore has been something essentially simple: The amount of people. Usually living just outside Boston, I didn’t think that the city would be much different from the busy island of Singapore.

However, I was truly shocked when I arrived to see that each day, from the bright and early hours of the morning, until pitch dark at night, people are everywhere.

It is sort of like experiencing constant rush-hour traffic. The buses are packed, the Mass Rapid Transit is packed, the malls are packed and even the streets are packed! This constant surrounding of people has made it a bit difficult in other areas, as well such as simply crossing the street.

If you wander out into Boston traffic, most people will stop for you; not here. If you wander into the street, you will get honked at, almost run over or receive angry stares. You must cross at a cross walk, when the light is green, or get a ticket. You choose.

With that being said, people here also drive “on the wrong side of the road,” which can be quite scary when on your first taxi trip from the airport to school and you keep thinking you’re headed into oncoming traffic. Singapore is also a “fine country,” meaning that there is a fine for almost anything you could possibly do wrong: Spitting on the sidewalk, littering, jaywalking, spitting your gum out, etc.

Speaking of which, I haven’t found one pack of gum for sale here in Singapore. Since it is such a large offense to spit out your gum onto sidewalks or any other public area, they simply don’t sell it.

Overall, the experience has so far been one of a kind. Learning to swerve in and out of people in roads, malls and everywhere in between while obeying all the new laws has been quite the task, especially coming from the U.S., where our rules are not as strict or as enforced.

After attending Australian Pop Culture lecture, one question posed in the lecture stuck in my mind that appropriately describes one major difference I have noticed since my arrival on the Gold Coast, Australia. A lecture slide read, “Does Australian culture tend to celebrate the ordinary, rather than the extraordinary?”

Even after spending only a few days at the university, that special essence was obvious. Not only do Australians live up to their laid-back lifestyle, but they are cordial and extremely hospitable. Anytime anyone has needed help since our arrival, most of the Australians have gone out of their way to help us any way they could.

Although it is only the first few weeks of the semester, their attitudes towards helping us out in any way seemed to be unique in comparison to attitudes in the United States. From my experiences, Americans can be very helpful, but Australians have a certain charm, as if they truly do “celebrate the ordinary.”  Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be unusual for an Australian to randomly strike a conversation either, even outside the university.

This is especially noticeable in restaurants or cafes. The service is exceptional and never disappoints. From the moment you step into a café, you feel as if you have somehow known your waiter or waitress for ages.

However, no matter how “mate-y” the experience seems to be, tipping is never expected in Australian restaurants. A tip is only given if you believe the service went above and beyond the personable and remarkable service.

In the U.S., a waiter or waitress is always expecting at least a 15 percent tip and even more for larger parties. Some restaurants even automatically add gratuity for larger parties or give suggestions on the receipt based on the total bill.

Australians believe there should always be great service and a tip is only earned if they went completely above and beyond the usual service.

Right when I stepped off the plane, it became immediately evident that I was no longer in the U.S. I thought (ignorantly) that signs, message boards, etc. in the airport of Brussels would be in English, but they were not. Belgium has two official languages, French and Dutch, and therefore English is significantly less important than in the U.S. and even other countries in Europe.

I would say the most shocking difference that I can think of so far would be the fact that Belgians don’t have shower curtains? I was surprised to see that my host family’s bathroom not only had no shower curtain, but no locks on the door as well. The first time I showered, water got everywhere and I felt really bad, but I’ve learned to work around it.

Not as shocking, but definitely a noteworthy difference, are the attitudes in Belgium towards alcohol and the environment. First off, Belgians are extremely casual when it comes to drinking. I knew Europeans in general felt this way, however, I did not realize how casual they actually were.

Here, it is common to drink beer at any time, of any day. It doesn’t matter if it is noon on a Monday or midnight on a Friday, people are always drinking.

There is a pretty nice bar on the campus of our school and they even sell beer in the cafeteria. I’m not even kidding when I say my tour guide was drinking a beer while giving our tour.

In addition, there are no open container laws and therefore drinking on subways, metros, or in the street is perfectly acceptable. They also seem to not really care about the age of people purchasing alcohol. Even though I am legal to drink here, I was surprised that I was not asked for an ID one time in the first two weeks I’ve been here.

As I mentioned, attitudes towards the environment are also different on a nationwide scale. Water is more expensive to use than in the U.S. and electricity is double the price during the day, as opposed to at night. The dryers for clothes are pretty bad and you usually have to put your clothes through three or four cycles before they are completely dry.

Finally, public transportation and communal rental bikes are the main methods of transportation. My host family doesn’t even own a car.