Lund has yet to be reached but the first stress of the exchange has been successfully overcome. Around a week before I departed for a summer in South America I received an email to the tune that my application for halls had been unsuccessful and I had been placed on a waiting list for any leftovers. After a series of frantic emails to the Lund coordinators I was left nursing one precious piece of advice: “sit tight, something usually comes up” – helpful. None-the-less I was eventually offered a room in one such left over that I was not even aware existed and calmly bit the hand off of the accommodation department. So I will now be staying in Östra Torn  which appears to be a small apartment complex with two rooms per apartment – so here’s hoping that the roomy is up to scratch!

My name is Lloyd Cameron and, in case anyone reading is feeling a little special today, I will be going on an exchange to Lund University in the south of Sweden. Lund has a population of just over 120,000 and around one third of that is made up of students so I should hopefully get to meet a variety of people in a pretty buzzing little town. Although I feel it is only right to be honest from the off and admit that Lund wasn’t actually my first choice for my year abroad, but things seldom work out according to plan and I have now embraced the Swedish/grown some Swedish in me and I am actually pretty excited about leaving to begin my studies there.

Since I heard of the ERASMUS scheme in first year I had been eager to gain a place. My grades were, to be frank, average, but the scale of the programme means that there is every chance that a serious applicant who is willing to be open and flexible regarding their eventual destination will be granted the opportunity to study abroad for a year. I honestly can’t tell you what attracted me to the idea of going away for a year but hopefully this will give me the opportunity to look at law, and university life in general, from a different perspective and learn something totally different than I otherwise would from the ordinary Edinburgh experience.

While there are the obvious hurdles ahead: learning a new language, meeting people from all over the world and trying to find some common ground with them and, of course, trying to sort some kind of summer placement, I’m firmly of the opinion that this is going to be the best year of uni to date. After all, when else will I get to explore a new place every weekend, choose subjects just because they seem different or wear the kilt out and get attention for it from the locals?? Talking about it now, I just want to get out there…