 My name is Jackie Hauke. I am from Northeastern University and I'm majoring in international affairs with a minor in criminal justice and Russian. I was looking for an institution that was highly regarded in international relations with a more regional focus because generally you take courses and it's very broad on the subject but I was looking to study more the Middle East, Asian and African studies which you don't get that perspective really anywhere else. I've got to say I didn't know about SOAS before I came here. I was researching what universities to go to and specifically in my field of study international relations. It's always nice to get a different regional perspective on contemporary issues and I feel like this is definitely the place to learn about conflict and development or international law and Middle East studies, African studies. They have so much that they offer and even for a summer course it's a good way to dive into a new area for a short period of time that you wouldn't normally experience otherwise. Everyone's so passionate about specific issues and just world events and everyone I feel like is driven towards activism here and I really like that back home it's not like that. I really like the small classroom environment. We do a lecture and tutorials so the lecture you get general information and then I really like the tutorial style where I had never previously done that where you get to engage with the reading material and just learn more in-depth about just different perspectives on issues. It was so diverse of ages, ethnicities, cultures, genders. People were expertise in their field for my course international law. We had a lawyer in our class and coming from like little previous experience on the subject it was interesting to just hear their take on the subjects and hear their expertise. It was a very nice balance of fun and culture along with the studies. London just has so much culture and energy to it. We would go to the touristy sites and go to a museum each weekend so you get a good balance. The activities we did, like the radio workshop, the banner making workshop, all those different ones I think helped bring people together and also the welcome day, the river cruise was quite fun, I did it twice. I would love to do work with international law after taking this course or law in general. So I think it was good to just understand what you'd like and what you don't like and it is a three-week course so it goes by so fast but you really feel like you gain a general knowledge of the subject and just specific issues that maybe spark your interest. It's just such a diverse and vibrant community so you do find your people here and I think everyone's just very motivated and it's a great environment to be in especially if you're just a driven student and you want to make a difference in the world.