Hello there! My name is Laura Dumet and I’m one of this year’s International Student Ambassador. I’m a second-year Business Management (Marketing) undergraduate student, currently looking for a placement as I decided to go for the “sandwich” programme (I’ll write more about it in my next blog for all of you interested in doing a placement year). I’m very excited to be part of this team and to blog about my life in uni and my road to finding a placement!

Well, let’s start with a little bit more about me. I was born in Lima Peru, and I’ve lived there my whole life until last year when I decided to come to Surrey. Unlike general belief, I didn’t have a cultural shock when I first moved here. I found the transition quite smooth mainly because back home I studied in a British school where we followed the UK educational system plus most of my teachers were international, the majority being British. At first, I thought I was going to have trouble adapting to classes because even though I’ve studied in English for my whole life, I graduated from school in 2017 and decided to start uni back in Peru which is completely different. I went from speaking English on a daily basis to not speaking it at all for almost 2 years. I also went from learning in English to learning in Spanish. When I first came here my English was not as good as it once was but after some months, I started to get the hang of it again.

In Lima I did 2 and a half years of a communication undergraduate degree focused on marketing, but after a year and a half, I realised I didn’t like it. I wanted a business-orientated career with a more international approach. I decided to hire a counsellor who gave me a lot of different options around Europe, and Surrey was one of them. In December 2019 I did a trip with my mum to England and Spain to look at the different universities and Surrey became my top choice from the start. Even though the first time I came here the wind almost carried me away and it was pouring rain I fell in love with the campus. I also really liked the idea of the placement year as I personally think that work experience is vital to find a good graduate job.

I hope you enjoyed my first blog post and I promise more are on their way! If you have any questions about uni life, or you want me to write about a specific topic don’t hesitate to leave a comment!

Until next time!