Judges Abroad is a series of blog posts written by Brandeis student-athletes who are spending part of their junior year studying abroad. To read more entries in the blog, click here!
Hi everyone! My name is
Aki Yamaguchi, a junior double majoring in business and international global studies with a minor in economics. I'm from NYC and currently studying at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland through IFSA. I will be working in financial services again this summer and hope to follow a professional career in finance or consulting. I'm a midfielder/forward on the Brandeis women's soccer team, and I am playing with the University of Edinburgh 1s team while abroad.
Studying abroad was always a goal of mine, even before I knew where I wanted to go to school. I love travelling and exploring new places and cultures so it only made sense that I ended up being an IGS major that had a study abroad component. Edinburgh clicked for me because of the high-level academics, English-speaking country, and a new atmosphere/environment. It has a top business school in the world, and I was excited for the chance to study in a city rich with history (and the inspiration for Harry Potter).
I've been fortunate enough to meet both full-time Edinburgh students and other abroad students. I live in a 5-bedroom flat with 2 full-time students from London, a full-year abroad student from Canada, and a fellow American who's also in my program studying at Colgate. Oftentimes, our flat loves to host poker nights with a bunch of the other abroad students that we've met (coming from schools like Colgate, Vanderbilt, UPenn, Colby, Columbia and so on). On the soccer team, we have four girls abroad who also play varsity soccer from Wesleyan, Hamilton, UT Texas and my teammate
Rachel Watler. It's a great experience to play abroad and play against other Scottish and English teams in the area, most recently we won the semifinals in the Cup against Stirling University. It's interesting to see how other teams play, especially in another country, and it's been fun to mix with new teammates who are so welcoming and talented.
Academically, it's been a new experience to take classes at a larger school with an undergraduate class of nearly 30,000 compared to Brandeis. I have huge lecture classes with small seminar classes, and their style of classes is different with both styles of teaching being in every class. For instance, my Introduction to Global Crime and Justice class has a lecture of nearly 200 students but only 10 students in my seminar. We discuss final questions every two weeks in the seminar, debating topics, and continuing on the content we learned in the lecture that week.
Our program IFSA organises events for us to do on some weekends, the highlight being the Highlands overnight trip we did. We saw beautiful sights from Dunnottar Castle to Loch Ness to Culloden Battlefield. More locally, I also got to see Edinburgh Castle and hike Arthur's Seat (recently featured in One Day on Netflix) which was an amazing view of the city. Coming up is the Women's Six Nations Championship, a big rugby tournament in Europe, where we get to see Scotland and France play.
I've been lucky to travel to so many new places, and I'm excited for the trips to come. A highlight has to be my trip to Lisbon and Porto in Portugal. Along with my family, I got to see the Champions League match between FC Porto and Arsenal which was just an electric stadium atmosphere. Some new places I had never been to are London, Brussels, Bruges, and Amsterdam so it was fun to explore and experience new cultures. My best friend from home also came to visit and we travelled together to Barcelona, Spain. Although I had been, it was a new perspective to visit without family and I got to eat lots and lots of tapas. Coming up is my highly ambitious spring break plan to travel to Budapest, Prague, Venice, Florence, Cinque Terre, Lake Como, Nice, and Marseilles. It's been a lot to plan and coordinate with my friends, but I'm so excited to get the chance to see so many cities and see the sights before our finals kick in.
All in all, this has been an amazing experience and once in a lifetime semester for me. The opportunities I've gotten from being able to study in a new place, country, and continent along with everyone I've met and places I've seen are priceless. To be able to continue to play soccer as well has been a plus, and it's great to now have access to watch the European professional leagues in person. I can't wait to bring back everything I have learned and experienced back to Brandeis and home. I have under two months left and I'm excited for what's to come and continuing to be in Scotland.
