"You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." - Samuel Johnson
I begin the reflection on my recent trip to London with this quote by Samuel Johnson, because I feel it is especially appropriate considering the unique opportunity that I was recently able to experience through Lafayette College's Interim Abroad Program. Shortly after the spring semester final exam period, a group of 20 students and two professors traveled to London, England, to engage in a comparative study between the healthcare systems of the United States and the United Kingdom.
A number of my colleagues are planning to enter the field of medicine in some dimension, and personally, I am planning to pursue a career in health policy and public health, so this trip was particularly well-suited for us, and it allowed us to broaden our perspectives on our potential future careers.
The main components of our study were a comparative course taught by Professors Childs and Lammers and an internship in a healthcare related field. The U.K. has a universal healthcare system which is managed by the National Health Service (NHS), so it provided the perfect platform for debate against the highly-privatized system we have in the U.S.
While this trip offered an invaluable look into the current healthcare discussion through two very different perspectives, I was able to walk away from the experience with so much more than simply an enlightened view of the healthcare debate. On the surface, London appears to be very similar to the U.S., but living as a Londoner for seven weeks opened my eyes to the intricacies of the society which set it apart from any other culture I have ever experienced. I left with a much greater appreciation for the culture, and I now have a more mature and open-minded approach to looking at different ways of life.
Prior to my trip to London, I had only ever traveled to less developed countries where I was expecting the living conditions and cultural differences to be obvious, but this was my first opportunity to experience life in another industrialized country. For the first few weeks, it almost felt like we were in a somewhat outdated, more expansive New York City without as many high-rise office buildings.
However, after spending time there, the differences became more apparent and it was interesting to notice these things. Beyond the little sayings, habits, and apparent quirks, one of the greatest disparities I noticed was in the London office environment compared to the U.S. workplace. Everything is much more relaxed and things are less cutthroat, yet the Brits don't seem to sacrifice efficiency and productivity. These are things that I never would have had the chance to absorb if the trip were shorter, so it was a great benefit that we were able to travel during the summer.
Now that I have returned to the States and have had a chance to reflect on my recent trip, I have come to realize that London truly does afford endless, unparalleled opportunities which are both intellectually stimulating and highly rewarding. During our time there, we were able to visit many attractions around London such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, The Tate Modern Art Gallery, the Tower of London, and the Globe Theatre, and we also did some traveling elsewhere in the UK to such places as Stonehenge, Cambridge University, and Pembrokeshire National Park in Wales.
However, equally - if not more - valuable to me were the cultural experiences that I had while living in London for seven weeks. It is for these intangible experiences that my trip was so fulfilling, and it is why I agree with Johnson when he says, "You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London."
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