Today is my first day in England, precisely on the campus of Brunel University London in Uxbridge City which is in Zone 6 of London.
Brunel's university comes from the name of one of the great British engineers Kingdom Isambard Brunel (1806-1859) in the 19th century. Isambard was born into a diligent family in 1806, with his mother Sophia Kingdom working for the Royal Navy and Marc Brunel's father becoming renowned French engineer.
Isambard attended formal training as an engineer and then built twenty-five railways, over a hundred bridges, including five suspension bridges, eight docks and piers, three boats and a pre-made field hospital. To add to this He is a keen social engineer, building housing, churches and hospitals. To commemorate Kingdom Isambard Brunel's services, his name was taken as Brunel's university name.
When I arrived at the airport the day before, I was picked up by the students who became the new student welcome committee. From the airport, I was directly transferred to the campus, arrived campus I along with other students were escorted to our respective rooms that had previously been determined when lodging a residence in the campus dormitory.
The cost of living in a dormitory or the so-called Hall is quite expensive, ranging from the elite dormitory to the usual dormitory. I myself chose to live in a cheap dormitory, namely Saltash Hall although cheap but very expensive when compared with rupiah.
Different from expensive dormitory, cheap dorm rooms are outside the room. In addition, some other facilities are also not as complete as expensive dormitory.
For one week, the cost of renting a room to reach 2 million rupiah, in the UK the cost to rent a house or room in the count per week. So, for one month the cost of room rent alone has reached 8 million rupiah. Compared to the city of Banda Aceh alone, I can rent a house for two years at a price of 8 million rupiah.
Back to Campus Brunel's story, here I majored in International Relation, why I chose this department because at the time of my undergraduate education I majored in Political Science and focused on International Relations.
For the first week on campus, we do not immediately follow the lecture, but will follow the week of introduction or orientation week. In this week, students from all over the world will be introduced to the various campus, faculty, faculty, and the most fun are the tour.
Since today is the first day, we will only re-register and get acquainted with new students. Alhamdulillah on the first day, I met with my students from Indonesia, although only a few people.
Brunel University campus belongs to one of the new universities in London, this can be seen from the buildings of modern campus. Students / I on this campus mostly come from Europe and Middle East, while from Asia most come from People's Republic of China, for Indonesian people who study here can be counted by finger which only amounts to dozens of people.
The student dorm is located in the campus area, from the dorm we can walk to get to the study room. The campus also provides Musalla which is intended for adherents of Islam. Muslim students also regularly perform the Friday prayers at the Indoor sports center.
To be continued