IES Abroad London – Theater Studies

My most memorable experience was getting to fly to all the different European countries with my boyfriend on the weekends! I chose IES because my boyfriend's school only accepted IES and we wanted to go together. Therefore I asked my school to switch my program to IES and with much difficulty, they did =) We lived in the NIDO building which was beautiful and new. However the management was just awful there, they wouldn't listen to any of our complaints or take any action. We lived on the 3rd floor, and there were people who smoked out on the courtyard illegally; the smoke rose up through our vents and filled our rooms with cigarette smoke every day which was not good for us. This was never acknowledged or fixed.

One day at my internship at The Actors Centre one of my coworkers announced that Paul McCartney was putting on a surprise concert in Covent Garden just across the street. During our lunch break we gathered with hundreds of other Londoners, and waited for Sir Paul McCartney to come out onstage. There was so much excitement in the air and despite how packed the audience was in the too-small courtyard everyone was extremely polite in their typical British way. And of course the concert was amazing! So London. I chose IES London because of the opportunity for internships and the strong reputation. Nido is a fairly new building and looks very modern. The rooms are teeny tiny, you share a sleeping space and teeny bathroom, but that is how almost all accommodations are in London. Each floor has a communal kitchen, there is a movie screening room, a café where you can get pre-made sandwiches or pasta, a wii, and an expensive laundry room. Each room comes with pots, pans, dishes, and cutlery and it was easy, so it was easy to make food in the kitchen. There is an Italian restaurant built into the dorm, but it is expensive and there is no student discount. The staff was less than helpful, but I didn’t have to deal with them too often. The locations is the best part of Nido Kings Cross. Kings Cross stations has a lot of tube lines and is fairly central. On the tube it takes 10 minutes to get to class, 15 minutes to get to the west end, and usually no more than 35 minutes to get anywhere in the first 2 zones. I was a 6 minute walk from Kings cross, a 20 minute walk to school and the British Museum, a 15 minute walk to the British Library. The area used to be really run down and sleazy, but it’s becoming a kind of artsy area and is really close to a cute neighborhood with a lot of good pubs, food and shopping called Angel.

I absolutely loved my semester in London. I am a theatre major and the theatre studies program at IES is all about getting you out in London to experience theatre. We saw shows every week for class and got to attend priveleged rehearsals and other theatre industry events that our professors were able to get us into. Having classes only three days a week didn't make for my most challenging academic semester but it was exactly what I wanted: I learned a lot without working endlessly on schoolwork and was able to use my four day weekends to travel and see A LOT of London. IES organizes a lot of day trips and a few overnights that I thought were fantastic. They took the planning aspect out of it for me and guaranteed that I would have friends on the trip. Overall I had no real negative experiences with IES with the exception of a small dorm room but the building was in a fantastic neighborhood and at least it made me get out into the city and live life in London instead of sit at home!