The End is Here

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mandela

Hello hello, everyone and welcome back. Today marks the last day of the Drexel Paris + London program and it is a bittersweet feeling to think that the end has arrived. I have had such an amazing time in London but before I get all in my feelings let’s take a look at my last week which was also finals week. I won’t even lie this week was lowkey stressful (again) because I had twice as much work to complete (compared to finals week in Paris) and it was mostly for my History of Design class.😓 The final week, for my History of Design class consisted of a group presentation about Postmodernism, an individual research assignment about design after world war 2, and an essay reviewing the California: Designing Freedom exhibition. For my Food, Society, and Culture class I had a final exam which wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be…hopefully, I did well on everything because I lost several precious hours of sleep. But, in the midst of all the lost sleep, I did enjoy two activities I did this week: visiting the Design Museum to see the California: Designing Freedom exhibit and going to London Cru (LND CRU) for wine tasting.

California: Designing Freedom presented at the Design Museum in London examines California’s mid-century modern history and charts the journey from the counterculture movements to Silicon Valley’s tech culture. It shows California during the 1960s as a point of convergence between the civil rights movement with black activists, liberal arts, hippies and nerds, surfers, gay activists, and religious leaders all united in their search for freedom. It depicts California as a basis where tools of personal freedom were designed to help these people promote their causes. The exhibition is a celebration of the world’s design capital showing the public that you can go where you want, see what you want, say what you want, make what you want, and join who you want. Of all the exhibitions, I visited with my History of Design class this was my favorite one and my favorite part of the exhibition was the Earth Wall. The Earth Wall is an interactive system developed for displaying and interacting with Google Earth, Google Street View, Google Earth Engine, Timelapse, and videos. It was probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen because you could zoom out far enough to see the entire globe and zoom in far enough to see a specific house on a street; My friends and I spent a good 10-15 minutes finding each other’s houses and it was lit.

Going to London Cru with my Food, Society and Culture class was equally lit because having alcohol during the day is always fun. London Cru is London’s first and only winery. Their grapes come from carefully chosen European vineyards of exceptional quality. And after being hand-selected and harvested, they are delivered to London and nurtured into wine. Before the wine tasting, Emma, a member of the London Cru team gave us a mini tour of the winery and the process that goes into making the wines. Wine making is a very detail oriented process and it was cool to learn about. The wine tasting including tasting 6 different wines, 3 whites, and 3 reds. I definitely enjoyed the white wines better and came to the conclusion that red wine is not for me. All in all, it was an experience.

My time in London has been very educational. I honestly learn so many things that I didn’t know before and though most of those things don’t relate to my major, Biology, they relate to my life in other ways. As Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Gaining education, no matter what kind, is invaluable and will benefit your life in ways you don’t always think of.

That brings us to the end, props to me for not getting in my feelings…that’s for next time. Until then, xoxo Joella.