Nur: Building a community

Nur from Malaysia is studying the International Foundation Year in Business, Management and Law. We connected her with Devika, another Student Ambassador, to share their experiences of studying online.

Talking to Devika has been a great opportunity for me to make friends with other international student studying in the UK. In these difficult times, making friends has been so hard for me as everything went online – so I am grateful to be able to talk with Devika.

Devika took three A level subjects, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. She is currently in her home country, India, looking forward to travelling to the UK and exploring Brighton. She wants to do chemistry-related courses for her future studies because of her interests in science subjects, as they are logical.

Devika likes to dance, play the guitar, cook and paint in her free time. She also favours travelling and shoe shopping. During our short video call, we managed to share some skincare tips. She recommended me a skincare brand which she likes. I really appreciate her thoughtfulness in share those with me, as I am having difficulties to find the perfect skincare products for my dry skin because of the cold weather here in the UK.

Last year has been amazing for Devika. She went to Denmark as an exchange student representing India. She stayed there for a year with her host family. She made some good friends in Denmark and learnt their culture through them. It was one of her most enjoyable times of all and it will always be memorable.

One of the biggest challenges she faced last year was when her flight from Denmark to her home country got cancelled because of the pandemic. She missed her parents and friends so much. In spite of that, she needed to hold herself together and be optimistic that everything will be fine soon.

Through the challenges, she learnt the importance of self care. Many people forget to care for themselves after working so hard doing work or studying. The pandemic has given us the time to stay at home and focus on ourselves. For Devika, she will make sure that she takes one day a week for self care, doing yoga and meditation.

I had so much fun talking to Devika. We shared and learnt so many things from each other. It has been a great experience for me to get to build a community with other people across nationalities from other universities. Building a community helps us to find a helping hand in every aspect of life, and not just about studying. It makes university life more meaningful, especially during this period of time when everything is online. I hope Devika and I can meet each other soon and explore the UK together.

Find out about the programmes we offer for international students.