All About London - Why Choose to Study Here?

| Students' Destination - London

It was the Romans who first put Londinium on the map, siting their capital nearly 2000 years ago at the place where the Thames estuary ceased to be tidal, and where ships could land their cargoes from all over the ancient world.  Right from the start, London was a cosmopolitan place where local Britons and Anglo-Saxons met Roman soldiers from all across Europe plus merchants and officials from all round the Mediterranean.  The Tower of London was the centre of Norman kings' rule over the British Isles from 1066, and in the following centuries London steadily expanded as a commercial and administrative centre.  The Royal Navy exported the empire and the English language all over the globe, while the Industrial Revolution enabled British businesses to pioneer many new technologies.

London was the first city to expand from a tiny core (the "City of London") and swallow up lots of tiny villages (like Woolwich) to be become one huge metropolis ("Greater London").  London is bigger than Paris plus Rome plus Vienna put together.  London was the first city to confront and try to overcome many problems: smog in the air, sewage in the river, too many cars on the roads.  The United Kingdom as a whole, and London at its heart, pioneered many things that the whole world now takes for granted: such as computers, universal health care, many sports, antibiotics, underwater tunnels, the theory of evolution.

With all this history behind it, modern London is a very dynamic place.  Its number-one activity is making money, nowadays more by financial services and the creative industries than by industrial manufacturing, but inside the big ring road (the M25) you can find just about every cultural and intellectual activity known to humankind.  An astonishing proportion of London's population was born overseas. 

The eyes of the world will be on London in 2012, when the Olympic Games come here, with the main stadium complex situated just a few miles north of Anglian College.  The shooting events will take place right on our doorstep in Woolwich and the horse-riding events will be nearby, in Greenwich.  With 28 sports on the Olympics programme and around 10,500 athletes in town, London will be an exciting place to be in 2012.

The next few web pages highlight some important features of the big metropolis within which Anglian College is situated, and where our students live and work.

This, then, is the city to which Anglian College invites you to come and contribute for a few years.