Greetings lovelies,

It’s Shahira here. I’m writing in my quarantine hotel in Malaysia, and yes, I had safely arrived home a few days ago. However, I have to undergo mandatory 14 days quarantine. Hence, even though I’m already home, I still can’t meet my family yet L

This post will be my final post on this blog, and I don’t know where to start. To summarise, my time at Surrey was one of the best times in my life, as I learned many new things and met a lot of new friends. Even though with the pandemic situation, I still managed to do some travelling to few places, and it was indeed lovely.

I promised to talk about my Raya experience in Surrey in my last post, but I had the chance to share that through my takeover of @surreyabroad’s Instagram page. Do visit the Ig page if you’re interested, as I did cover other things like my orientation, the places that I’ve visited, and all in all, my experience at Surrey. But, to summarise, I had a lot of fun, giving that it’s my first time celebrating away from my family. Here are some pics of my friends and me during Eid:

When I arrived in Surrey, I had the flat for myself, and I even thought that will be the situation until the end of the semester. But then two of my other flatmates moved in, and it was just the three of us until the end of the semester. Even though it was just the three of us, we had a lot of fun living together and promised to stay in contact with each other. Here are some photos of my flatmates and me, it was devastating that we don’t have a picture of the three of us together >.<

As for my classes, I went through the semester virtually, but the lecturers were very helpful and easy to refer to. I really appreciate the subtitles in all recorded lectures as English is not my first language, I find that very helpful. I would also like to mention how different the grading system is with Malaysia. In Malaysia, we use the CGPA system, and 80% is the A grade. When I learned that 70% is already considered a first-class grade or A in the UK, I thought it would be much easier to score than Malaysia’s university. But, I was totally wrong when I learned that the marking process is a lot stricter, and it is difficult to achieve 70%. Fingers crossed that I did well in my finals >.<

I admit that my experience would be much different if the pandemic didn’t happen. Alas, I’m still glad that I decided to further my application for this exchange program and come to Surrey (gosh, I even got to experience snow during spring!). For now, I will say goodbye to all of you, and I hope that I will come back again one day. I already plan to continue my master’s study in the UK, and maybe in Surrey? Till then, thank you if you read my post until the end, and I hope for the best for you. Logging off now 😀

Already missing Surrey,

Shahira