Morningside from the Outside: An Exchange Student’s Experience

First, a brief intro: I’m Carlos, an exchange student coming from University College London. It’s a city university in the centre of London with no college system — past first year, students must find their own accommodation. As such, it was incredibly different from CUHK, a collegiate university nestled on a mountain in the New Territories about 45 minutes away from Hong Kong Island by MTR.

Thankfully, this was a very welcome change. One of the hardest things about studying at UCL was the lack of community — in my first year, I got thrown into a city of 9.8 million and a university with 51,000 students. Eventually, I pieced together people from here and there and found places I felt at home — but this was a process that took my entire first year. Not until my second year did I properly feel like a ‘UCL-er’. By contrast, I felt like a Morningsider two months into my year-long exchange.

An impromptu cycling trip to Plover Cove reservoir I was invited to!

What accounts for this? It boils down to a small community, filled with events, facilitated by the fully residential collegiate system which Morningside executes very well. Morningsiders are willing to chat, incorporate you into their activities, or join in on activities you organize. Source: Me.

 At communal dinners, I’d strike up conversations with whomever I sat near, and far more often than not, students happily talked with me. In fact, some Morningsiders would go the extra mile to make me feel at home. After my second communal dinner, when I still had no idea where I should be sitting, someone specifically came over to introduce himself to me. We ended up making a band together — my first ever. Fast forward half a year later, we ended up going on a trip together to Beijing.

An escapade to the Forbidden Palace with a Morningside friend.

I credit another Morningsider with igniting in me a passion for table tennis — he invited me to play, and proceeded to thrash me. Since then, we have played often, yet I’ve only managed to claim two wins out of our 40-50 games.

Similarly, I got into bouldering by being included into two Morningsiders’ plans. They were friendly and let me tag along, despite us having only just met. We ended up going twice a week for a month, and I made two new friends!

Aside from impromptu interactions, there have been many official Morningside events/activities to provide a chance to engender community. The College’s intercollegiate sports teams were a wonderful place to generate Morningside pride, and I thoroughly enjoyed participating in MCSU-organized events such as Music Night, the mid-autumn festival, Halloween, and the Cultural Fair. Shoutout to MC Rangers as well for the hikes! These were indispensable for integrating me into the community, and I’m so grateful there were so many opportunities to meet people and make friends!

At a board game cafe with my original bouldering buddies.

Those events also gave me the confidence to go out on a limb: in November, I asked around to see if anybody was interested in Dungeons and Dragons, a longtime hobby of mine. I received unprecedented interest, including from Morningsiders I barely knew at the time. I created three separate groups of players to accommodate everyone! These were all beginners, simply open to trying out something new — and I’m very happy to report that they’ve all enjoyed playing, and I hope they continue to do so once I’m back at UCL.

The latest event I’ve concocted are Swing Dance sessions, the first of which occurred on the 18th of March. I was once again pleasantly surprised by the interest from people who I hadn’t yet met, who were willing to go out on a limb and try something new. It takes some spirit to join in a dance session when you don’t know how to dance, or know the guy teaching it!

A Dungeons and Dragons session in the Morningside Café.

All this to say, the community here at Morningside is vibrant and something that can be easily tapped into if you’re willing to put in a little effort and put yourself out there. Morningside is full of warm, fun, and interesting people — at least this has been my experience. It’s been wonderful getting to know everyone; through casual chats in the cafe, over games of table tennis, late night grinds in the study room, and deep, late-night discussions on the bridge.

I do miss my friends back in London, but I will miss my community here in Morningside. When I return to walking around UCL’s campus, I will wear my Morningside windbreaker with pride.