Naddy Teo
CAS’27
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
SA: University College London
PGS: Policy Task Force on US- China Relations in China
Contact
Ask Me About…
Travelling, living, and making the most of your time in London/Europe! The UK school system gives you a lot of independent time, which makes time management crucial. I travelled across 17 cities in 10 countries which took a lot of planning, and would love to share what I’ve learned about budget travel in Europe.
Though the language barrier wasn’t a challenge, I found that Political Science, Philosophy and other humanities classes can have a completely different approach depending on the school system. It took some time to get used to the different perspectives and grading schemes.
I also took a Penn Global Seminar that took us to Beijing at the end of Spring Term, and I grew up across Shanghai, Singapore and Yangon. Feel free to ask me about any of these places.
My Experience Abroad
As a PPE Major with a concentration in Globalization, a majority of my classes I take are in Political Science so it was very insightful to observe how physical positionality in the world influenced the perspective on key political issues. For example, courses in London seemed to more heavily focus on pre-established theories and referencing literature, whereas PSCI classes in Penn tend to take a more hands-on, current affairs approach.
Additionally, my PGS course “Policy Task Force on U.S.-China Relations PGS” gave me novel insight into politics in the real-world, through experiential learning. Talking to active diplomats, politicians, and reporters provided a granularity to the world of politics that is difficult to glean from coursework alone.
Other Highlights
- Travelling every weekend, seeing and learning about parts of the world I wouldn’t have made it to otherwise.
- Becoming great friends with Study Abroad students from schools across the U.S. through University College London, and students from Penn through the China PGS.
- Becoming better at managing my independent time, having only 2 to 3 days with class a week, while studying abroad.
- Talking to real world politicians, reporters and diplomats in China and Washington D.C. and learning about their lived-experiences with my China PGS.
