Submitted by Steven Smailer on the 2020 winter session study abroad program in London, England sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice…
Throughout our first week of the Criminal Justice winter session program in London, I’ve found myself consistently surprised by the differences between the United Kingdom and the United States. There are, obviously, the things that you expect because you’ve either heard about them, or you’ve seen them in movies or television. For example, I knew that in the UK they drove on the left side of the road, and that restrooms were referred to as “toilets,” as well as various other bits of Britain-themed knowledge. However, if there is one thing that I have learned over the last week, it is that no matter how much you think you know about another culture, you will always still be caught off guard by how little you actually know when you travel there. Tiny dissimilarities between our country and the UK consistently show me how different two similarly Western societies can be. A couple of examples would be the fact that red lights turn yellow before turning green again here, as well as the fact that there are 8 coins in this currency system as opposed to the United States’ 4. You’re also not supposed to tip in the UK, unless it is for genuinely exceptional service, and even then it isn’t supposed to be much more than 10%. Museums and similar government funded exhibitions and attractions are free to attend for the public. These sort of things are constant reminders that even though I am still in a conventionally Western country, it is still a very different society from the United States. As our program goes on, I’m looking forward to learning more about these subtle differences, and expanding my knowledge on the UK’s culture as I do so.