I had a great time in the Bay Area for my first semester at Northeastern’s Oakland campus! I enjoyed my classes (Financial Accounting & Reporting, First-Year Writing, Introduction to Marketing, and Principles of Microeconomics) and learned a lot in and out of the classroom.I also enrolled in a one-credit course called Global Learning Experience, which was unique to the Bay Area. While the number of extracurricular activities was limited on the Oakland campus, I was able to attend speaker events such as the Tuesday Speaker Series for the Entrepreneurship Club (E-Club) and the Disrupt Speaker Series, which was for the FinTech club. Lastly, I participated in NU Oakland’s Husky Startup Challenge, in which I developed a product idea and created a slideshow covering everything from the problem the product solves to its business model. My product was an app that locates the nearest water refill stations on a map, which would decrease the amount of plastic waste used and save consumers money. Unique to Northeastern’s Oakland Campus were Experiential Treks (E-Treks), in which we each visited a nearby business headquarters in a group, ranging from Google to a local bagel bakery. I went to the Intuit headquarters in Mountain View and learned how different departments must come together to develop a product. My favorite part of being in Oakland was going into San Francisco. I went on an excursion to Alcatraz, which was cool to see and learn about the island's history. The restaurants we went to were amazing, and the distinctiveness of the neighborhoods is what made San Francisco a very fun city. My favorite singular trip off campus, however, was to Lake Tahoe. The scenery was amazing, and fortunately, it was warm enough for me to go for a short swim. Overall, I had a great first semester in Oakland. I had the perfect balance of learning in school, narrowing down what I want to do for my career, and having fun exploring the West Coast. Now that I am in London, I am even more excited to see what this city has to offer and travel to other places in Europe!