King's Study Abroad Stories

Kayva Kolli joined King’s from the University of Pennsylvania for a semester, and used her GMEB funds to explore her own culture in London.

My name is Kavya Kolli and I studied abroad at King’s College London from the
University of Pennyslvania. At my home university, I study the history of art and economics and was lucky enough to take classes in both realms during my time abroad. I took a leap of faith by applying to study abroad at King’s because I have always felt the need to constantly put myself in situations which would assist me in growing and gaining new perspectives whether it be cultural, academic, or geographic. King’s had all of that and more with a diverse student body population, class offerings that were well suited to people with a global mindset, and the flexibility to pursue extracurricular student organizations to become integrated with the greater community. Alongside this, I was in a community of like-minded individuals who were academically driven to pursue their passions.

Alongside my academic endeavors, I also wanted to utilize my time in London to enrich myself outside of the classroom. I applied the the Global Mobility Bursary in order to explore my cultural heritage in a new environment, travel to see art in its historical and cultural context, and network with professionals to help with my career. I was able to attend and meet other first generation Indians from England, assisting in my understanding of how our cultural differences are bridged by the similarities of our experiences. We were able to relate to one another and speak about how we used our heritage to create a community but also shared it with others whether it was through food nights in our KCL accommodations or cultural events thrown by the student societies.

During my time abroad, I was able to travel to ample locations and visit many museums in the meanwhile to continue my research on sub-Saharan African art and Grekko-Roman sculptures. I used the GMEB to solo travel to Paris, France on a solo trip since this city has incredible art collections. I visited the Louvre and spent the day speaking to a curator of one of the collections. Experiencing the art on my own allowed me to connect with the pieces and take time with each one I looked at. I was able to identify the artists’ intentions, the significance of them, and correlate my experiences to theirs. I also was able to see the curatorial preciseness utilized to give the viewers a specific experience. The presentation of the pieces was strategic in creating a story for the viewers to follow along with. Along the way, I grabbed some good eats and drinks such as authentic croissants and hot chocolate, all while speaking to tourists from another region in France about their experience growing up there!

Another way I used the GMEB was to visit Southhall, a town in west London which is culturally similar to India and has a large Indian population. I got to speak to many of the shop owners about their own journeys to London and even brought my flatmates who came from different cultural backgrounds to share the experience with them. We ate food, drank chai, and tried on many dresses, such as lehengas, in order to create a versatile experience. I also was able to use a bit of my Hindi to speak to the shop owners about where they source their products from.

Last, but definitely not least, I took a trip to Italy where I visited Pompeii to first hand see a piece of art I was writing an essay about. I travelled with two study abroad friends of mine and gave them a gallery talk about the piece where I was able to see the implications of using specific materials and the incredible craftsmanship of the piece sustaining the volcano eruption. The beauty of seeing the piece in the context of where it was created, laid on the ground in the home
of a highly statused individual in Ancient Rome, emphasized the incredible feats of artistic progression. I was able to use the GMEB to help with entry into the park and the travel costs.

These experiences would not have been as easily accessible to me had I not had the opportunities to apply for the GMEB. I learned new languages, ate food from various regions, and academically grew my understanding of the fields I am studying in the classroom. I will take this with me as I continue my research and will continue to forge connections with my peers who may come from these different cultural backgrounds.

In our first blog post for our GMEB Student Success Stories, we hear from Barnett Yang who studied at King’s in January 2023.

Hello! My name is Barnett Yang, an exchange student from UC Berkeley in the sunny Bay Area of California. At my home university, I study honors computer science and mathematics, and I was an exchange student at King’s College London for the Spring 2023 semester. 

As a second generation Chinese-American immigrant, I have scarcely traveled out of America and China, and have consequently developed a curiosity for European history and culture. Since attending college, I have come to realize that the history of both mathematics and computer science are inexorably linked to the history of the United Kingdom—the former being steered by the likes of Isaac Newton and Andrew Wiles, and the latter by the likes of Alan Turing and Tony Hoare. In many ways, the United Kingdom was the genesis of the industrial, technological, and information revolutions that define our world today. The net consequence was the realization that, if I did want to study abroad, I most definitely would like to do so in London. 

The Global Mobility Experience Bursary was a welcomed windfall, and the promise of the bursary is evident in its name: it gave me the mobility to explore my interests in London and Europe. With the bursary, I had the funds to travel up and down the island of Britain, from Edinburgh and Manchester, to Bath and Canterbury. I could satisfy my niche interests in Bletchley Park and the Bank of England Museum, while also being able to take trips to Paris, Rome, Stockholm, and Berlin. 

Britain is an absolute treasure trove for any student of computer science. In the environs of London is the famous Bletchley Park, known as the home of the Enigma codebreakers during the Second World War. I had an absolute blast exploring Bletchley Park and its multitude of exhibits (reassured, of course, with the knowledge that the GMEB would assuage its relatively pricey entrance fee). For instance, while the most famous machine developed at Bletchley Park is the “Bombe”, it is not, in fact, a computer, but rather a machine designed to cycle through various settings of the Enigma machine. Perhaps more relevant to the development of computing, and yet less well known, is the “Colossus”, a machine built to decrypt the Lorenz cypher in the waning years of the war. Bletchley Park is also a place of pilgrimage for fans of Alan Turing. There is a plethora of exhibits detailing his contributions to computer science, such as the Bombe, his own codebreaking work, and the inception of the Turing Machine. 

And of course, I had to visit Manchester (via funds graciously supplied by the GMEB) and discover the city’s own contributions to computer science. It is well known that Alan Turing was based at the University of Manchester after the Second World War, yet I had little idea of the specific experiments and research conducted at the university. One example that I found particularly interesting was a machine known as the “Baby”. While the original machine no longer exists, a replica can be seen at the Manchester Science Museum.  

Ultimately, my time abroad was substantially enhanced both by studying at KCL and through the GMEB. London is a great launchpad from which to explore the rest of Britain and Europe, but it is a destination in itself and, I think, the most culturally and historically rich city in Europe while still remaining highly relevant in the 21st century.