London

5/15/17

Today was our first full day in the UK.  We started pretty early with heading to the Oxford at 6 in the morning.  We had a meeting with Mini Cooper where we were able to tour their plant where they produce the majority of Mini Coopers which are then exported worldwide.  It was interesting to note that 30 percent of the Mini Coopers produced are made with the steering wheel on the right.  In addition to this, something that was relevant to our coursework from this past year was that this plant that we visited uses Just In Time (JIT) production.  They only produce a car when they receive an order for it.  By walking through the production cycle, we were able to see how efficient they are at manufacturing each car.  Not too long ago they automated a lot of the processes and it was amazing to see a ton of robots that would pick up, weld, and put together these cars.

After that we had some time to explore Oxford.  We walked around the city and visited Christ’s Church and walked around the grounds a little bit.  It is crazy to think about how old Oxford is.  As we were walking through the town and caught public transportation, something that I noticed about British people is the way they talk.  First and foremost, although we both speak english, their english is a little bit different.  They use different phrases that we don’t use.  For example, on the bus today, we heard some kids talking as they were about to get off the bus.  One of the kids said to another kid, “Come on now, get a move on”.  Although I understood exactly what the kid meant when he said that, I found his word choice very interesting.  Another thing I noticed about the UK is that British people don’t really talk on public transportation.  Again just like the previous places we were at in Europe, I feel that Americans just tend to be a lot louder and more obnoxious when in public.  I would say that British people talk on public transportation more than other places we’ve been thus far, but they still maintain a whisper which is something that us Americans I feel tend to struggle with.

Once we returned from Oxford, a group of us went on a run to Hyde Park.  it was a couple miles away from our place, and the park itself is HUGE!  We ran to different parts of it and it was really pretty.  Overall I would say it was a very fun and eventful first day here in the UK.

5/16/17

Today we had a business visit with Bank of England in the morning.  It was cool to meet with the representative and hear about the history of the Bank and the function of the Bank in regards to the UK’s economy.  Something that I realized as I was sitting there during the presentation was the fact that no matter where you’re at in the world, the principles of economics are the same.  When it comes to controlling inflation and influencing consumer spending/behavior, the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve for the U.S. act the same way.  Also the concept of money was interesting to me.  Just how there has to be this system of trust that the money that you are using reflects accurately how much money you have and that the ability for outsiders to create counterfeits is hard.  After that we got to tour a museum there.

We then had lunch with Deloitte which was a cool experience to be able to meet with their professionals.  One thing that I learned that’s culturally a little different from the U.S. is the work culture.  Here in the U.K. people work less hours and actually have more vacation days.  With that being said, when deciding where I want to work abroad, this is definitely something to consider because in Japan, the work culture there is to work really long hours.  The work culture here seems a little more laid back than in the states.  

We ended the day by going to the play Les Miserables.  Lets just say I was miserable.. hahaha it was my first play, it was super hot, and i didn’t know what was going on.  With all these things combined, I struggled to stay awake.  With that being said, although I didn’t enjoy the play myself, I do have mad respect for the actors/actresses because they are very talented.  Also I have nothing against people who enjoy plays, however, I must say that I’m just not a fan.

5/17/17

Today was a pretty busy day.  We had two business visits.  One with the IASB and one with Fitch Ratings.  During the first business visit, we met with the IASB and were exposed a little bit to IFRS.  It was interesting to hear and learn about their standards which are principles based rather than rule based.  The presenter took us through a case study where we had to figure out depreciation for a certain fixed asset according to IFRS standards.  In debriefing the case, I was surprised to see how intuitive everything was.  You would think that with a principle based system that there would be a high possibility of variances, however it these principles have been very well thought out.  Learning U.S. GAAP (rule-based standards) throughout school, some of the standards were intuitive, but it seemed like a lot of the time, the standards were just a bunch of rules and it was very black and white.  With that being said, it was cool to see both types of systems.  I wouldn’t say that one is better than the other, but I definitely think there is pro’s and con’s for both and although in the past there was talk about convergence, I think taking some things from IFRS and adopting them to U.S. GAAP would be a good idea.

We also got to sit in at a deliberation meeting which was awesome.  I was expecting a bunch of English people to be a part of the board, but I was surprised when I saw that there were members from a bunch of other countries (e.g. Japan, India, Korea, Hong Kong, Europe).  With a board consisting of people from all over the world, I thought it was very beneficial for the group as a whole when deciding on a specific standard.  The viewpoints of the board member from Japan were different from other board members.  And although they were different it was cool to see the members deliberate and see things from the others perspective.  I thought it was an amazing experience because these are the people who set the accounting standards for 147 countries.  That’s a lot of power that is in their hands and so these people are incredibly smart.  They were talking about goodwill and it was cool to see that I was able to follow along for most of their meeting and know what they were talking about.

We then visited Fitch Ratings.  I’ll be honest, I was super tired and so I wasn’t able to fully pay attention, but rather was fighting to stay awake the whole time and thus I don’t really remember what happened during the presentation.  However, it was interesting to see that one of their presenters/employees was a former Big 4 accountant and now he was working there.  

One thing that I noticed about London compared to other big cities in the U.S. is how clean it is.  For how big London is, I haven’t really seen much trash out on the streets.  This is just a thought, but another thing that I’ve observed about the English is how nice they dress.  It seems that they care about their parks and preserving nature and so I think this has translated to them keeping their city clean.  Whatever the reason may be, I was surprised and honestly after today, I could see myself living here possibly for a foreign assignment.

5/18/17

Today was a free day and so I slept in.  It was nice to catch up on some rest.  We started the day by going to a nearby park and then walked around the city.  I’m not sure if this is just because there might be more tourists in London, but as we were walking through the park, something that I noticed was that here in London, there are a lot more people that are out and about in the park than in the U.S.  Some are feeding the ducks/birds, others are exercising, and then there are those that are just walking through the park or relaxing on a bench.  Well actually I guess what my cultural observation is that the British people seem to preserve their parks and wildlife more than I would say the Provo/Orem area does.  London is a huge city, but I have been surprised at how many big parks are in London.  This is something that I wish was more common in the U.S.  Being in Europe and the U.K. I’ve really enjoyed going to these parks and walking through and seeing a bunch of other people out and about as well.

At night we went to the Wicked play.  In my opinion, I thought this play was better than Les Miserables.  It was a combination of things, but I think the reason why I enjoyed this play more was for 3 reasons: 

(1) The theatre wasn’t blazing hot  

(2) I took an hour nap before the actual play  

(3) I was more familiar with the storyline than Les Miserables and it was easier to follow long

With that being said, I did enjoy this play a LOT more than I enjoyed Les Miserables.  However, I don’t think I would spend money to go again.  The only way I would spend money again to see a play would be if Erin wanted to go.  Other than that, I wouldn’t go again.  It was a good experience but yeah play’s just aren’t my thing.

5/19/17

Today we had a business visit with the Institute of Certified Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW).  During the first part of the visit, the presenter talked about how he thinks that eventually technology would replace most of all the accounting jobs.  He brought up how this is something that we need to be mindful of because it will impact us during our careers probably soon.  Honestly the presentation seemed pretty pessimistic.  For me these were my thoughts:

(1) I agree that to an extent that technology will replace certain mundane tasks, however I don’t think that technology will make accounting jobs completely obsolete.  The reason being is that at higher levels, certain questions require human judgement and even if you could program a robot or have technology do it for you, I just think that society would be more comfortable with knowing a human was thinking certain things through and then making the final call.  

With that being said, I could be wrong, but that is my opinion.  All in all it was a good mind stimulating presentation.  However my cultural observation deals with business visits/meetings in general here in Europe and the U.K.  I feel that in the U.S. we emphasize just getting to the point fast and because of that, business meetings are a lot shorter.  So far here in Europe and the U.K. a lot of our visits/meetings have been well over 1 hour and it has for the most part been a struggle to stay awake.  I wouldn’t say one is right or wrong, just differences in how we all do things.  

5/20/17

We started today off by going to Portobello Road.  There were a bunch of shops that sold antiques, food, and clothes.  During this time I was looking for presents for mom and Erin, the question was what should I get them.  As we were walking through the food area, we came across a booth/stand with a lady that was demoing some kitchen supply things.  She had a bunch of unique vegetable peelers that caught my eye.  Some of them would shave/peel vegetables into long skinny strands, she had other ones that chopped up the vegetables into cool looking flower things.  Anyways long story short, I decided to get mom these because they are very practical and I know mom would use them.  With Erin, and shopping for girls, I feel that it’s normally a risk to get antiques or jewelry, so I just got her an Oxford sweatshirt.

Anyways after that we headed to Dover.  Dover is an old part of the U.K. where during WWII British and French troops retreated to after the Germans drove them out of France.  It is directly across the English Channel.  We got to go on a tour that explained a lot of the history of the area during the war.  What I thought was amazing was that they had a tunnel system that in total was around 3 miles.  That’s a lot of digging and underground areas.  The tunnels were definitely my favorite part of the tour.  

As far as my cultural observation for the day, something that I’ve noticed about U.K. is it is very diverse.  I feel that my image of the U.K. and Britain was just white people.  However, while being here, I’ve found that there are a good amount of Blacks, Indians, and Asians.  I really like that aspect of U.K.  As we walked down portobello road, there were so many different cultures that were represented in each of the booths.  I think I could see myself living here if I needed to do a foreign assignment.      

5/21/17

Today we went to church here in London.  It felt so nice to go to church and listen in English.  During sacrament meeting there was a guy that was snoring SO loud!  We were sitting probably 4 or 5 rows up but we could all hear him snore.  And it wasn’t just a soft snore, it was super deep and loud.  It was really funny.  Also it was super random, but after sacrament meeting I was walking to sunday school and I ran into Sam Rosen and Maddie Crawley.  I hadn’t seen these two since high school which was 7 YEARS AGO!  It was just really random, because out of all the places to run into them, it was literally all the way on the other side of the world and it happened to be the same exact church building at the same time.  It was fun to catch up with them.  

One thing that was kind of a little bit of a shock that I hadn’t had since being back from my mission in Japan was that people have to travel sometimes a pretty decent length to get to church.  Being in Utah for a while now, you sometimes forget that other people elsewhere in the world have to travel a decent amount just to get to church.  Once again it put into perspective my faith and how important it is and how sometimes I take it for granted.  It was important for me to realize too that I shouldn’t complain about going to church or it shouldn’t be a burden for me to go because there are church buildings so close and everywhere in Provo.  All in all church was a great experience.  

On the way home we rented bikes and rode home.  The ride required that we go through Hyde Park and it was super nice weather out, so it felt so nice to be out and riding a bike.  This whole week it has been raining, so it was nice for a change to see the sun.  Something that I noticed about British people today compared to Americans is that they seem to be more outdoors-y or it just seems that more British people like to go out for walks and sit in the park and chill which I feel is rare in the states.  With that being said and with today being the last day in London, out of all the places that we’ve visited this study abroad, I have liked London the best.  If I had to live anywhere abroad out of the places that we’ve been, I would definitely choose London.  It’s been real London, but I’ll be back.