No matter how much you bring from home, you will inevitably have to buy some things in England. In fact, I would recommend that you try to bring as little as possible, as some airlines have weight limits for your check-in and carry-on bags. In addition, from a CME perspective, don't forget that you still have one more year of study back at MIT! Thus, you should take into account what items you still want to have with you when you return. For example, a fan that you really like might best be kept at home not only because it takes work to use it in England (you would need at least an adapter and perhaps a converter), but also because of the work it takes to transport it across the ocean. If anything happens to that fan, not only will you then have to buy a fan in England, but also you will not have that fan when you return. Furthermore, some items in the US are not compatible with their counterparts in the UK. For example, three-hole punching doesn't exist in the UK. Instead, they use two-hole or four-hole punching, so it renders any three-hole puncher that you may have brought from home useless.
There is also the issue of electronics, the incompatibility of sockets in the US and the UK, and the voltage specifications in both countries. While US appliances run on 110 V, UK (and European) appliances run on 220 V. Thus, if you intend to bring electronics to the UK from the US, check whether your plugs support dual voltage. If not, you will have to buy a converter so that it can "step down" the voltage from 220 V to 110 V so that your appliance will not blow up when you plug it into the wall. At the very least, you will have to buy adapters so that you can plug in your US appliances, as the UK exclusively uses Type G sockets (image below - note the switch on the top right handside of the socket), while the US uses Type A and B sockets. Thus, you should think about whether or not it is better to just buy the appliance in England or spend the effort looking for an adapter/transformer for your US appliance. Which choice is preferable depends on the situation. Most likely, you will want to buy an adapter for your computer, as it would take more time and work to configure a UK computer. Not to mention, it would be quite expensive. On the other hand, you are better off buying a hairdryer in the UK given how much power hairdryers draw, which can potentially even blow a converter.
Even if you somehow manage not have to buy anything in the UK, you should still go shopping nonetheless! In Cambridge, there is a great shopping area near King's College (image below) where you can buy all sorts of things, ranging from food to phones to water bottles! I will hopefully talk about which places you should shop at in a later blogpost, but I wanted to use this post to give some general tips about shopping in England that you should be aware of:
1) If you plan on using a credit card (and I would recommend this), make sure that you sign your card or have some card with your signature on it.
Contrary to store employees in the US, checkout staff in England will often want to see proof of a signature either on your credit card or some other card to make sure that you are not forging the signature of someone else. This should not be a problem if you have already signed your credit card or have a card (e.g. an ID) with your signature on it, but you should be aware of this practice.
2) US pharmacy is not the same as a UK pharmacy
When we think of "pharmacies" like Walgreens or Walmart, it is a place where we can buy almost anything ranging from prescription medication to school supplies. That is often not the case in the UK! There, pharmacies (also known as "chemists") are generally for medication only. To find other goods that a US pharmacy might offer, you would have to go to places like supermarkets or department stores. The closest equivalents to a US pharmacy in the UK are Boots and Superdrug, so if you are looking for a pharmacy in the US sense, you are better off asking about the location of a Boots or Superdrug store so as to avoid any misinterpretation.
3) Some items may not be as easy to find as you might expect
As I have been shopping around Cambridge and London, I have found that there were some items that I took for granted in the US that were surprisingly more difficult to find in the UK. For example, plastic ziplock bags, which you can easily find in bulk at Walmart, were nearly impossible to find here. I had to try at least three of four stores before stumbling upon a Poundland (the UK equivalent of a dollar store) that was some distance away from college. Another example was rubbing alcohol. When I inquired about it, most store employees were totally confused by the term, and I had to describe it before hearing from them in a somewhat confused tone that it wasn't in stock. Finally, a Boots employee realized what I was referring to, which was "surgical spirit," and she found it for me relatively quickly afterwards. You sometimes have to be a little persistent when you can't find something that you want to buy!
These are some of the major shopping tips I wanted to share that have stood out to me in the short time I have been here in England. I aim to revisit this topic in the coming months as I continue to assimilate myself into the day-to-day activities of a Cambride student, but I hope this post was a helpful starting point for you all!