What was your favorite course and why?
My favorite course abroad was a contemporary Scottish art course called “Scottish Art in the Age of Change (1945-2000)”. I had a fantastic professor who was super engaging (I think he may have been recommend to me by Professor Perkinson), the class was taught seminar-style, it was quite small (~10 people) with only me and one other American. Many courses available to study abroad students are filled with exchange students, so it was exciting to be in a class with more “home” students and, because of the content of the class, there were more Scottish than English students, which is also a rarity at Edinburgh! Plus, the artists we studied were fascinating (I wrote about two of them in a class when I got back to Bowdoin), we took museum trips and got to see most of the art in person, and I felt as though I was studying a very niche genre of art that had space for new insight! Definitely a more overlooked time and place for art history.
What was the highlight(s) of your study-abroad experience?
The highlight of study abroad was my ability to travel around both Europe and Scotland. I only had class Tuesday and Wednesday, so I had loads of time to travel. I did a Scotland trip when my mom and grandmother visited me, and we spent a week road tripping through the country. It’s probably the most stunning landscapes I’ve ever seen! I also visited a lot of art in Europe’s major museums (The Prado in Madrid, the Louvre, the D’Orsay, and l’Orangerie in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Mauritshuis in the Hague, the National Gallery and the Courtauld in London, the Ghent altarpiece, and more that I’m sure I’m forgetting!). That truly was one of the best parts of abroad and a major reason I chose to be in Europe - for the access to other countries and their art.
Why should Bowdoin students consider your program?
I chose Edinburgh because I was supposed to be able to take both art history and biology courses (that didn’t end up working, unfortunately, but that was the goal). I think the UK allows students interested in multiple fields to pursue different interests at the same time. Directly enrolling also forces you in a lot of ways to make friends with home students because you don’t have a program of Americans to rely on. Edinburgh is a great city because it’s small, accessible, and beautiful. It’s far more manageable than London but still has access to all of western Europe super easily with trains and planes.
