By Ben Walker
Staff Writer

After they graduate, most WA seniors stay within the U.S. for college. However, there are a few people that go to other countries around the world. This year, one of these students is Alisa Graham-Brown, who will be attending Durham University in the United Kingdom.

Traveling to foreign countries is not new to Graham-Brown as she was born in Japan and lived there for the first few years of her life. She also lived in Sweden for a bit due to job changes in her family. Her father, who is also British, suggested Durham to her.

Other than Durham, Graham-Brown looked at King’s College in London, where her father went, as well as a few schools here in the U.S. However, she felt Durham was the best fit for her based on what they offered.

“I got into a combined honors and social science course, which basically allows me to customize my degree in any area of social sciences that I want, which is not something that they offer here in the U.S,” said Graham-Brown.

For her major, Graham-Brown would like to go into international relations and Durham offers her to pair international relations with any other subject. For these possible subjects, she is considering economics, anthropology, or history.

In addition, Graham-Brown was admitted to Durham by early decision. Also, she found that a consideration for her school decision was the cost of Durham. The cost, she says, was much cheaper than any other college that she had looked at.

Although she is half Japanese and half British, she feels that she has never really connected to her British side. Since she previously lived in Japan for the first few years of her life, Graham-Brown decided that going to Durham was the perfect opportunity to connect with her British roots.

“I lived in Japan for five years, but I’ve never lived in the U.K., so I thought, college: it’s the time to discover yourself and try new things, and it’s a good time to connect to my British side,” said Graham-Brown.

For the most part, she is excited to see the new culture in the U.K., but Graham-Brown is also bit worried adjusting to the changes.

“I’ve been here for eight years. I’m very comfortable, [with] how to speak to people and the etiquette, and even if you don’t know a person you can connect to them over TV and music, but I think it’s going to be a bit more difficult […] to connect to people right away,” said Graham-Brown.

Even though she thinks connecting to people will be difficult, Graham-Brown still thinks it will be a good challenge for herself. Also, like most people, Graham-Brown is focused on doing well with her college studies. She noticed that  Durham is more of a learning community than a social community and wants to make sure she can keep up with that.

“Durham is really up north, so it’s basically in Scotland. So I think I’m [going to] come back with a Scottish accent, which is kind of exciting,” said Graham-Brown.