Moving to London for College?

Question

I'm moving to london for college in about 2.5 months. I will be living in a dorm and going to Richmond.

I need to know what should I bring w/ me besides the obvious things like clothes, money, toothbrush, insurance and etc.

What things should I look out for while in london, and what things should I avoid? (ex. type of people, food, places)

What should I know before leaving the U.S.?

Please give me info that I will be able to use or need to know.

Thank You

Answer 1

Make sure you have a passport so you can get back.

If you have any electronics, get a outlet converter.  Their plugs are different from ours.

London is great for ethnic food.  Lots of good Indian restaurants.  Be a little daring and try a little bit of everything.

The US dollar sucks right now against the pound, so evrything is going to be a bit expensive.

Their subway system (The Tube) is really easy to use and get around, so use it.

Good Luck!

Answer 2

Mind your bag on the tube. Plenty of light fingered types.

Check your area with fellow students. I'm moving to London as well in September and a student told me where to go and not to go in the area.

People there vary as they do every where. Being a city it's not the friendlyist of places but not so cold as people make out.

Definitley bring a converter and buy an expensive sort of one as the cheap ones are no good.

Shoppings great in London so I recommend going to visit areas like Camden market. Plus many theatres in the west end do discounts for students so I'd take advantage of that.

Best of luck with the move and try not to bring too much. The dorms are teeny tiny.

Answer 3

Richmond is a nice area ... very pretty, mostly rather middle class, near the river Thames

bring some extra passport photos with you ... make sure you get yourself a student card from the College as you can get quite a number of discounts (e.g. travel on trains, coaches) ... for heavens sake please don't talk too loud or brag too much (you'll make yourself extremely unpopular this way, we tend to be a bit understated here) and we don't want to know how much better the US is at anything ... also avoid brightly coloured clothes ... plug adapters for anything electrical you have ... some padlocks for lockers ... learn to spell the English way, learn the English words for things, and try to figure out the difference in grammar between the two versions of English ... think about getting a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone when you get here, if you're planning on bringing a mobile phone with you try to check out whether it's compatible with the system we use here and whether you could put a UK SIM card in it (e.g. is your current mobile locked to a particular provider, could it be unlocked?) ... make sure you've got all your family and friends addresses, email addresses and phone numbers written down somewhere safe

lay out all the things you intend to bring with you, then throw half of them away ... look again and ask yourself how many things you just couldn't live without and are worth carrying half way across the world to a country which is well endowed with retail outlets, and take some more away from the pile ... you really don't need to clutter yourself up with a mountain of stuff ... you may be starting off in a dorm but it's pretty certain that you will want to move at least a couple of times and again you will curse yourself if you have loads of stuff to cart round with you ... bring something to remind you of home (maybe a family photo?) ... be prepared to go on a steep learning curve for a subtly different culture and way of life

anyway, welcome to my country and I hope you have a great time