Lily from Guangzhou in China came to BOSS in summer 2018 for 4 weeks and in her own words, describes her experience beautifully below.
2018, the most beautiful encounter with Buckswood Overseas Summer School (BOSS)
The moment I stepped into this school this summer, it was meant to be something more than ordinary.
This is the first time for me to go to a new country without parents or teachers accompanied, as well the first time to study under a totally strange environment which I had no friends and have to use English all the time. During this experience, I brought in the purest friendship and the one and only experience for a 13 years old Chinese girl.
When I first arrived the UK, I have to admit that I was a little bit nervous. And with this a little bit of nervous, I started the 28 day long of new life.
I would describe the first week as torture since many classmates from other countries have their friend. Although I have some friends, I still feel something was not right. I just couldn’t got myself out completely, more importantly I don’t know the timetable well which made me hard to fit in. However, the time that I started to make some changes was the time when I met a 15 years old boy from Austria, who was my first real friend.
When I found out that everyone I have spoken to brought me back a hello as “hi Lily” even with a high five when the next time we see each other, I gradually tried to fit into them. At first I wondered if they would laugh at me or isolate me because of different races, but then I thought about it, and it was ridiculous. Everyone there is friendly and warm. Even when you see boys and girls walking together, no one thinks they are in puppy love, more often they think they are just friends. Two weeks later, I not only got used to it, but also fell in love with the feeling that a few friends could say hello and joke with each other while walking along the road.
Then came a Chinese regiment, I can finally hear some Mandarin in the British environment, But slowly, I found that these Chinese children always seem to play only with Chinese children, sometimes with foreign children, will feel embarrassed, do not know what to say, or even fear of wrong, and rarely communicate with foreigners. In the event, such as fashion shows, other children are open, there are men dressed as women, also make clothes with plastic bags, are very happy, but there are always some low-headed shy figure. I especially wanted to tell them loudly, don't be embarrassed! Don't be shy! Don't think others will make fun of you. They will only think open-minded is cool. Don't be afraid to communicate. Maybe their English is not even better than yours. It doesn't matter if there are grammatical mistakes. Communication is important for everyone to understand. If there are some difficult words that you don’t know why not try to explain it by a simple one. Opening your mouth is the most important and difficult step for any language, but no one knows how well you can do it if you do it boldly, and you can also reap more happiness than others. And when you're not shy, you'll find that you're much more relaxed, you don't have to think about "what this person thinks of me" and "whether I'm not doing that well," and then you'll be like me, in love with this school, with a Friday party to let you go!
I believe this summer adventure would be the one of the most unforgettable memories of my life. Just like I said, this is meant to be something more than ordinary. And I, am sincerely thankful to the perfect journey with Buckswood.
Thank you very much to Lily for these beautiful words.
BOSS is a British Council accredited language school for students aged 8 to 17 from across the globe. To find out more, please visit www.buckswoodsummerschool.com or contact us here.