Jean Scott, President, Marietta College

I spent a full year in London while I was a graduate student in history at Harvard University. I had received a fellowship to support my graduate study, and I learned during orientation that the fellowship included support for study abroad if that was necessary. I immediately decided to be sure that my dissertation topic would make travel to London necessary.

My research on propaganda and censorship in early seventeenth century England required that I read government documents, early published books, and miscellaneous manuscripts located in the British Museum and the Public Record Office in London, so I spent months in the reading room where Karl Marx wrote, in an archive poring over the handwritten notes and memoranda of seventeenth century public figures, and simply enjoying the aesthetic of holding a first edition of the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer.

My experience was much enriched by participating in seminars at the Institute of Historical Research in London led by two of the senior scholars in my field and attended by graduate students from all over the English speaking world. Those seminars provided rich intellectual experience as well as introductions to friends with whom I explored the sights of London, and yes, the pubs and the nightlife, too.

We traveled all over the city on the tube and the buses, sampled the international cuisine that London's immigrants made possible, attended an average of a theater production a week, and came to think of London as our city.

During my stay in London, a coal miner strike forced the entire country into rolling blackouts, so for four hour stretches, there was no power in London. From this, I learned three things: that the British spirit is as indomitable as it is portrayed to be, that traffic was snarled but not entirely stopped by the absence of traffic lights, and that I could not type by candle light!

Since my experience was in an English-speaking country, I did not have the opportunity to immerse myself in a second language. I did deepen my affection for Queen Elizabeth I, my historical role model; marvel at Sir John Gielgud's acting ability; develop the confidence that comes with going to a place where you know no one and making your way; and make England the second home of my heart for life. My advice to anyone who has an opportunity to study abroad is jump at that opportunity and do not look back.