Experience Leeds, England with API

There is no experience like the Leeds experience.

API staff work diligently to make sure their students are integrated with British students and leave with a true English experience. My Headingley flat was shared with students from the country, and I would be one of two international students in each of my seminars. API offers excursions from an afternoon tea at the Grand Arcade to the best of Edinburgh (Scotland) and a play in city centre, tailoring the trips around student interest.

The academics offered at University of Leeds are challenging but encouraging. My theatre course started with the tutor offering us a cup of tea before the seminar, and my poetry class encouraged me to go beyond my existing understanding to further understand the lyric. While API encourages you to transition to the new system with entry-level classes, they don't keep you from pushing yourself further, and the courses offered at Leeds (that might be nothing like the ones offered back home!) translated well to my home university transcript.

There is so much to see in Leeds, from free museums to the beautiful architecture around campus to the street art you pass walking through Woodhouse Ridge. And the city is central in the country, so you're a coach ride away from Liverpool, a train from Cambridge, and a quick Uber to the airport so you can catch your flight to Paris. No matter where you go, Leeds is quick to capture your heart and feel like a second home.

Choosing to study abroad in Leeds with API was the best decision I could have made. I studied in Leeds for the first semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. API is absolutely wonderful with making you feel comfortable while being abroad. My program director ended up becoming a second mom to me and was always available to answer any questions I had. I took two sociology classes and one history class at the University of Leeds. I thought that the professors were very engaging and I enjoyed attending my lectures everyday. There were approximately 150-200 people in each of my lectures.
For a housing accommodation, I stayed in an off campus residence hall with four other flatmates. In our flat, there were five individual rooms, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. We frequently had flat dinners together, which was really nice and helped all of us bond. Three of my flatmates were from England and one was from France. I loved that I lived with English students because I was able to learn a lot about the English culture from them. I ended up becoming really close with one of my flatmates. I still FaceTime her regularly and she is planning on coming to the US to visit this summer.
The residence hall is a beautiful and easy 30-40 minute walk to campus and about a 15 minute bus ride. The bus is very easy and convenient to use, especially when it is raining. The University of Leeds campus and the city center has so much to offer and is absolutely beautiful. I ended up exploring a different part of Leeds every day that I was there. Everyone in Yorkshire is incredibly friendly and I always felt welcomed no matter where I was.
The API excursions definitely made my experience truly memorable. Some of my favorite memories are from the excursions we went on. If you are someone who wants to explore England but might not do so on your own, the excursions are a wonderful addition to this program. Studying at the University of Leeds allows you to completely immerse yourself in the life of a UK University Student. I highly recommend studying in Leeds. If I had had the opportunity, I would have studied there for an entire academic year, or maybe even longer.

Studying abroad at the University of Leeds was the best decision I made! The staff at API are very supportive, informative and enthusiastic about international education. What is unique about the program at Leeds is the fact that you are experiencing the English culture through the lens of an English university student. This program is one of the only programs in England where you have the opportunity to live in student halls with English students, attend lectures with local students, and fully immerse yourself within the student community. Leeds is also easily accessible, there is a bus system in the city, a train station downtown, and an airport outside the city. Leeds is located near many national parks, so there is easy access to hiking and exploring historic sites in England. API also includes cultural excursions to further teach you about British culture, such as trips to London, Edinburgh, and historic sites in Yorkshire.

Beyond the immersive aspects of the program, Leeds offers a wide range of courses to enroll in. By taking art history courses not offered at my home university, I enhanced my academic studies and strengthened my research skills within the field. The University also sent weekly emails to students about internship and volunteer opportunities. In addition to my studies, I presented my research at an Undergraduate Research Conference at the University of Leeds and held a research placement at a local theater!

My time at the University of Leeds with API was, hands down, the best travel experience I have ever had.

Leeds Uni is an amazing and wonderful university, with a thriving and vibrant student scene as well as incredible and top quality education. Going with API made a near perfect experience absolutely perfect. I was able to travel around the country and experience more of the English culture than if I had gone on my own, or even with another international programme. My resident director provided excellent support and was always available to help me with whatever I needed.

I grew on so many different levels. I made so many friends and had so many wonderful social experiences. Frequently, I would make the comment for friends and family at home, "who knew I was a social butterfly disguised as a shy person?" In addition, my thoughts and way I viewed my educational field changed and developed. I had never been challenged in academics like I was there and I learned more in my one semester that the rest of my university experience in the States.

The best way to see how much I enjoyed the experience is that I became inspired to continue my education in England, at a university not far from Leeds. This means I am able to go to Leeds frequently to see my friends and see familiar sights.

I loved the whole time I was in Leeds. The professors were incredible, my director for API was AMAZING, the campus and city are wonderful and the experience was the best I could have had.

I took the modules on the Olympics and the British Pop Music. The best part was that the Olympics were going on as I was there. It made the class even more enjoyable.

For the school side, they had a trip for every weekend which made it very easy to travel over the country. We went to many different cities, including Oxford, Liverpool, Manchester, Whitby and York. Whitby was one of the best beach cities I have been to and I live on the West Coast of the United States.

The variety of people that the program allows for you to meet is incredible. There were people from all different continents and made it even more fun to be there.

API was great at having easily the best director I could have asked for to be in charge of their Leeds program. She made herself easily available and was always ready to answer questions, concerns or just hang out with you. She made the outings we went on relevant to me (I was the only person that went through API for this past summer at LISS and she made sure that what we did was something I was interested in).

I could not have asked for a better month of my life!

Every day I tried to explore the city and do something different. I never really had a similar day to day experience except for going to class. I think the best thing you can do while abroad is explore and go check out things that you might not normally do. Living in London was the best time of my life! I made some of the best friends I have ever had there. I still stay in contact with my friends from England as well as my friends from the sates. My only bit of advice is to be open to new situations and be adaptable.

Studying at the University of Leeds through API was possibly one of the greatest decisions I have made in my college career. The thing I loved most about Leeds was that everyone was welcoming of international students on and off campus; someone with an American accent was treated as a student and not a tourist, not something I can say for places like London. Also, it was easy to get involved. The campus had involvement fairs with clubs and organizations for every personality. The best part of my academic experience was that as an English major in England, I wanted to know the British perspective of the authors that I read and I definitely got it. The lectures were very focused and extensive on contextual information about the text. Also, at Leeds Uni, English majors are actually English and Theatre Studies majors. On my home campus, the English and theatre departments are far from collaboration which I find unfortunate. As luck would have it, one of the theatre professors here used to be the theatre director at Leeds. I took one of his colleague's classes which is also where I met most of my friends. In this class too I learned what theatre majors back home don't: how to read a play with literary analysis; I learned what English majors don't back home: how to portray what we find in the text on stage. I thought it would be difficult to make friends, but I knew that if I was friends with theatre majors back home, I would be in Leeds too. I can't wait to go back and visit, and I wish I could study with API again who were very generous with their support.