Aishah Bah
CAS’27
Political Science (Political Economy)
SA: Queen Mary University of London
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Ask Me About…
Going abroad for a full semester was very different from any of my previous experiences traveling or studying internationally. There was enough time for the novelty to wear off and for questions I had not really considered beforehand to become important:
- How do you make friends when you are starting over socially?
- How do you find community in a city as large as London?
- How do you make the most of being abroad without feeling like you need to be doing something exciting every day?
I would love to speak with students about that transition, especially those who are excited to go abroad but are also nervous about leaving behind the routines, friendships, and familiarity they have built at Penn.
My Experience Abroad
Studying abroad fit naturally into my Political Economy concentration because so much of what I study depends on understanding how politics and markets operate within different societies. My classes gave me one way to explore that. The Global Politics of Food connected everyday consumption to larger questions of power and markets, while studying American political thought in Imagining America became more interesting when the United States was no longer the political environment immediately around me. But much of what I learned came from living in London itself. Following British politics while I was there, navigating a different university system, and simply seeing how another city functions gave me a reference point outside of the American context that had shaped most of my education.
The semester also gave me more room to think about what I wanted from the rest of my time at Penn and eventually from my career. I came back more curious about work that requires understanding how decisions made in one place can have consequences far beyond it. That perspective is now something I carry into both my Political Economy coursework and my interest in finance.
Other Highlights
- Making new friends: Going abroad meant leaving behind a community I had spent years building and having to make new connections from scratch. The friendships I formed became one of my favorite parts of the semester because I suddenly had new people attached to the places and experiences that were becoming important to me.
- Traveling: London gave me an incredible starting point for seeing more of the world. I traveled within the UK, visited other countries across Europe, and even made it back to Morocco after first visiting while studying in Seville several years earlier. I loved that traveling could mean anything from seeing another part of the country I was living in to crossing into an entirely different region.
- Adjusting to a slower pace of life: This took some getting used to because I am accustomed to days at Penn that fill up very quickly. In London, I began leaving more room for things I had not planned and developed routines that were less centered around constantly having somewhere to be. By the end, those ordinary parts of the week were some of what I enjoyed most.
- Trying new foods: London made trying something unfamiliar incredibly easy because so many cultures are represented throughout the city. Food became part of how my friends and I explored, often giving us a reason to go somewhere we had never been and then spend the rest of the day seeing what else was around.
