I study for this semester at the University of Cumbria, located in Lancaster. There are five other campus in England.

The University is quite young because it was created by the union of St Martin’s College, the Cumbria Institute of the Arts and the University of Central Lancashire’s in 2007.

The University of Cumbria gathers the Business School, the Institute of Arts, courses of law and social sciences, sport…

The Business School of the University of Cumbria exist since 2013.

Here is a timeline of the history of the University :

I came for the first time at the University of Cumbria to register the 16th of January. I met there for the first time the other Erasmus students. We had a visit of the University and some explanations about the computer system of the school. The University is very large with many buildings and it is difficult at the beginning to not get lost. Finally, the University has its own library which is really big with a lot of work spaces and a lot of resources. It has also a coffee shop and a snack zone.

I have three courses : International Economics (Tuesday, from 10 to 13), Human Resource Management and Development (Thursday, from 17 to 20) and Web Development (Friday, from 10 to 13).

We began courses one month ago and I can say that these courses are very interesting because even if, for the two first of them, they are a little bit similar of these we had in France, they are made differently. So we can learn these topics on an other way with some details that we didn't knew before. The course of Web Development is really interesting because it is something that I have never done before. In there, we learn how to build a website with specific programs as the HTML language, the CSS one,... all of this to know how to put the contents that we want where we want on a page, with the colors and background that we chose ; as if we were a kind of real web developers.

If the courses, in the way there are made, are quite similar than these in France, there are many things which are very opposite in terms of way of being in the classrooms during the courses. First of all, all the courses are done on PowerPoint presentations that the professors send to us before or after the class. In term of composition, there are no minimum and maximum of pupils per class. We are, for example, about twelve in International Economics, fifteen in Human Resources, and 4 in Web Development. In fact, we are not to many per class as in France where we can be thirty. Furthermore, another difference compared to France is that if someone arrive after the beginning of the course (no matter for how much time he is late) he can enter the class and follow the course. We can also : use our phones, tablets, computers during the course and also drink and eat without any problem ; which is very astonishing for us because the French system is a little bit more strict.

In terms of social life, the University doesn't plan anything for students in term of social life, but there are a lot of sports that we can practise if we join the sport association of the school.

Many thanks for having read me, and see you soon for an upcoming article about the trips that I have already done this month in England !

Emilie

Photos sources :
http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/AboutUs/ContactInformation/Maps/Home.aspx
http://www.cumbria.ac.uk/Public/ER/Images/BuildingsPlaces/UoCHistory.jpg
Personal Pictures