This week is Welcome Week at SOAS. Exciting! Finally things are getting started and I can go back to being a student. Yesterday I attended the first faculty speeches and really enjoyed sitting in an auditorium again. One of the professors, a nice lady from India, talked about some important things about studying at SOAS. She started by saying that the very first thing to take care of is to have fun studying, which surprised me, because that's something that I think would never happen in a speech at let's say a Korean university.
Another thing she said was, that everyone should try and make the most of the short time that they have here in London. That was actually what she mentioned as the second most important thing. Since SOAS has a huge number of foreign students it makes sense to say that, but it was still quite surprising. She talked about socializing and meeting people and going to parties etc., what again striked me funny to hear at a welcome talk at school. It was motivating though, I have to admit. She certainly gained a lot of applause.
Only at the end of her speech she pointed out things like punctuality and propper work, research and responsibilities, but I'm not sure how serious she was taken by then. I left the event with mixed feelings and felt like grabbing a cup of coffee to think about what I heard. I do believe that the part about time passing by really quickly is true, but then, where does that lead me? One year sounds like a lot, but I don't think there's any time for me to lean back and relax. I feel like I should already start planning my next tangible step.
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