What it means to be twenty-one, according to Freya, an IISMA scholarship awardee, who studied abroad at Queen Mary University of London September-December 2023.

Before the pilot announced that we would be landing shortly at Heathrow Airport and I saw British soil with my own two eyes, I didn’t know what it meant to be twenty-one.  

I remember blowing the candle that said twenty-one; I know how to input my birth date on documents as my birth year, but I didn’t know what it truly meant. It seemed like a very adult age, where you have to know how to do your taxes or get on a plane without your parents to study for three months in London. I was so scared and really unsure of what I’d gotten myself into. I repeatedly asked myself: “Am I going to be okay?”

Hi, hello. Before we get into that rabbit hole, let me introduce myself. My name is Radikha Freya Anjani, or Freya for short. I’m a final year English Literature student from Bina Nusantara or BINUS University, located in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia and my hometown. I was granted as an awardee of the Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA) and had the privilege of being an Associate student at Queen Mary University of London for the autumn 2023 semester. I have arrived back in Jakarta now, with the 35-degree heat daily (95 Fahrenheit for the American readers), and as crazy as it sounds, I’m really missing the cold weather of London. But I’ve also had time to recount my days and truly understand what I experienced now that I’ve slowed down from trying to swallow the whole city in three months.  

In hindsight, I don’t know why I was so scared. What unfolded in the three short months I was in London, and QMUL in particular, is now officially a part of my life I will proudly recount to anyone who will listen. I mentioned not really knowing what being twenty-one really means, and I don’t think this is a unique experience, but I feel perpetually seventeen and twenty-one at the same time. At home, I live with my parents, and I’ve never had to move away or live on campus, so I never really knew myself outside the safety of things I grew up with. When we arrived at QMUL, I had to drag my overweight suitcase, which was refusing to roll properly around the Pooley House building, and as I sat exasperated on my bed, I thought, “Wow, I’m truly on my own, aren’t I?”. 

There were a lot of firsts that I didn’t know would happen: the first time I had to grocery shop by myself, the first time I had to take care of myself and rely on my community of friends when I got sick a week after move-in day, the first time I realized that I really am twenty-one. I think, like a lot of people in my age group, I’m a product of the pandemic. I’m very isolated and awkward in a world that’s now very big and open to me, and a percentage of why I was so adamant about pursuing a study abroad experience was precisely that. I wanted to see a world bigger than my room and understand the limits of my capabilities as a young adult. I’m happy to say that London has genuinely made it a dream come true for me, and QMUL for accommodating all of these big feelings.  

The courses I took at QMUL, particularly “London: Walking the City” and “London Performance Now,” were incredibly valuable in helping me explore London in a way that would have been impossible on my own. In “London: Walking the City,” we had walking seminars in various locations throughout London to discuss urban walking in the modern world, while “London Performance Now” assigned us a different performance to watch each week and discuss in class. I feel so much gratitude for that because I know not a lot of people can do this while also enriching their academic knowledge. Coming from Indonesia, I was also surprised by the seminar/lecture system in the UK, but I found it to be a more well-rounded approach to learning. Even if I just listened, I gained a deeper understanding of the topics we were discussing. These courses taught me that there is knowledge to be found everywhere should I be curious and willing to ask questions.  

Moreover, being in East London, surrounded by very diverse people, I also learned that I have a national identity. At home, I never had to say that I’m Indonesian or that I’m from Jakarta; I just was what I am. In London, meeting friends from all over the world, I learned what it meant to say where I come from as a part of my identity that shaped the bones of my anatomy. This has led me to learn issues related to the communities in London and global issues as well, but through a new and broader lens where I can see them more multifaceted than how I was able to before. I’m proud to say that my study abroad experience has helped me become a more critical thinker of the environments around me and more aware of who I am beyond my own personality. I’m glad that this was because of the amazing people from many backgrounds I met along the way. 

I want to return to me on September 16th and tell them that after all of this, being twenty-one has much more meaning than before. She’ll be so happy to hear that I figured out the London Underground system in basically two weeks, which made me feel so much more like a proper adult, and that she will indeed be okay. I’m home now and happy to be. But after London, “home” is debatable.