By Alice Warner
DMU students just wanted to embark on a once in a life-time experience to New York, but their excitement soon turned to agitation after a disastrous 43-hour journey.
For the past two years, third year undergraduate students at the university have been given the chance to participate in the opportunity to go to New York with the #DMUGlobal scheme.
On this year’s trip at the beginning of January, students got the chance to participate in an industry visit, with Contour Fashion students visiting Aerie, a lingerie and women’s clothes shop in New York.
DMU Contour Fashion student, Jade Woodward, recalled what happened, saying she was excited to experience a new country but the journey couldn’t have gone worse.
She said: “I really wanted to go to New York as I had never been before so it gave me a chance to experience a new city and culture.
“The journey couldn’t have gone any more wrong. When arriving to get on the coach at 4am on Thursday, January 4th, our teacher told us that our flight was cancelled. But we found out that we were on a flight at 5.30pm the same day.”
A very cold and frozen Central ParkHowever, whilst on the flight the students were told that they were going to be landing in Detroit because of extreme snow storms in New York.
Upon landing, they were told that their connection flight to New York would be at 5am the next morning and that the hotel the staff had organised for them had no rooms left.
As a result, the students had to spend their night on the airport floor.
Miss Woodward explained: “In the morning, we found that our plane was delayed for five hours and at 11am, we were told that the plane had an oil leak and would not be able to leave until 7pm.
“After another change of planes, we finally departed around 6pm that night. We arrived at the hotel at around 11pm on Friday, January 5.”
After finally getting there the students managed to visit everything that was planned despite missing a couple of days of the original planned schedule.
Vs x Balmain collection that the group viewed whilst in New YorkMiss Woodward said: “The industry visit was such a good opportunity as it allowed us to learn about different job roles within the company and also to see how their employees got to where they are today, which is inspiring me to apply for jobs all around the world.
“I would recommend going as it is an amazing opportunity to see New York and it allows you to experience their culture and the amazing architecture that surrounds you.”
DMU has since offered students refunds for the time that they had missed and are also giving students the chance to go again in the summer.
