Over the summer, Jenny Schollaert ’15 studied abroad at Cambridge through the University of New Hampshire. She sat down with us to tell her story and help you plan for your trip!
On Her Major…
“English, just because I really love to read. I’m in love with books, I’m in love with the written word. It’s so much fun, and every time you read it’s a different experience no matter what you read. And then Women’s Studies, I tacked it on as my second major after having Intro to Women’s Studies with Dr. Bruckner and realizing that there was a field to channel all of this activist energy into. So that was really exciting. And it also relates really well to English because you can use feminist lenses to read books, which is just a combination made in heaven, and I love it.”
On Choosing Her Study Abroad Program…
“Well I knew I wanted to study abroad, and I knew I wanted it to relate to my major somehow, so I was really just kind of putting out feelers the whole time. Then Megan Clohessy talked to me about her study abroad experience with the same program through the University of New Hampshire at Cambridge. We had coffee, and she told me all about her experience, and it was wonderful. It sounded like exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to get into, so I started looking into that same program, and it was just perfect. I went forward with that and applied, and England it was!”
On Navigating the Application Process…
Jenny first applied to UNH’s study abroad program, then applied to study abroad for credit through Chatham. She recalls that Chatham did a great deal to help her through the process. “It was definitely not as stressful as I thought it was going to be, but personal statements are not my forte which was interesting. And Dr. Lenz helped a lot to kind of focus what’s going on with the study abroad and what I wanted to get out of it, so that was fun.”
On Starting Applications…
“I would say definitely start early and know your options before you set your heart on one thing.”
On Getting to London…
“I’d been abroad before. In 2010, in the summer, I went to France for two weeks, but I was with my high school French professor. I was with a bunch of friends that I knew…it was like 17 of us going abroad together, so we had direction. But this was the first time that I’d ever been on a plane by myself, like completely by myself, let alone been on an international flight by myself. And airports are not my favorite, so that was fun just getting there. … I got in on a Friday, had a Saturday in London, and then moved in on Sunday. So the first day I was completely by myself in London with a map and just going crazy. So that was amazing.”
On Going to a Pub for the First Time…
“I knew as soon as I got there that I wanted to go to a pub. It was just the one thing I wanted to do: I wanted to go to an English pub and just make it happen. I didn’t know the pub etiquette, and it’s so different from going to a restaurant here. Because you go to a restaurant here, you have a waiter, they seat you at a table, and you order. Not even a little bit at the pub. I walk into this pub, and it was unbeknownst to me a biker pub. Oops! Just exploring. I went and it was a biker pub, and I’m waiting for a waitress to seat me. And I’m like, Oh, you don’t get seated. You just choose your seat and you order at the bar and you give them your table number and they bring the food to your table, and you’re already paid and you leave when you want. So it’s completely different. But I was like, There’s no waiter to seat me! I don’t know what I’m doing at this biker bar! And I ran away. … I later conquered how to go into a pub. But that first day, I was like, Let’s just do mini steps. Biker pub was not on my list of things that happened successfully.”
On Arriving in Cambridge…
“It was also interesting going from London to Cambridge. They’re an hour away by train, but they’re completely different! London is huge and sprawling, it’s just London, it’s wonderful. But then you go to Cambridge, and it’s this cozy town, and you’re surrounded by these tall, old buildings that are older than our country is! And to have them surrounding you when you’re walking down these close streets that are cobblestone, it’s everything you’ve ever dreamed of.”
On Life as a Student…
“Well, I took two classes for eight credits. I lucked out and I had my two classes on the same days, so I had my Modernist Fiction class on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and I had my Literature of WWI class Monday and Wednesday afternoons. So I had Tuesdays free, Thursdays free, Fridays free and then the weekend, which was wonderful. And each class was two hours at a time, so it was just four hours of class two days a week. Awesome. So that was kind of how the classes went. And then every day at 4 o’clock we had tea, and then every day at 6:30 we had dinner in the hall, which was literally like the Great Hall out of Hogwarts. There were four tables and then a high table and it was just like, whoa. Unreal.”
On Ely, The Globe and Titus Andronicus…
“Every week or so there would be an expedition that would be organized by the program. Say, our first week there, the first Friday, we did a trip to Ely, which is about 15 minutes away from Cambridge. It has a big, huge, famous cathedral that is absolutely gorgeous. So we did that expedition. Some other expeditions that we went on, we saw Hamlet and Titus Andronicus at Straford-upon-Avon with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was crazy. And then one Friday, we went to London for a day, and that night we saw Macbeth at the Globe.” She and her friends even met a hobbit at the Globe, pictured below.
On Traveling to Scotland…
The biggest expedition that there was that you had to pay a little extra for, but it was completely wonderful, was the bonus weekend which was Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Edinburgh, Scotland. We drove there on a coach bus and it was a six hour drive, but the drive there was through the Scottish and English hills. So it was a six hour bus ride through the English countryside, and you’re looking out of these bus windows, and you’re on this sprawling, winding road, and you see the sheep, the clouds are rolling like it’s about to storm…. And we decided, this looks so much like the Shire from Lord of the Rings that we just blasted the soundtrack of The Hobbit. And so we’re sitting there looking at these green hills with the sheep and the sky and the music from Lord of the Rings is playing, and we are having a complete geek out and it’s wonderful. We get to the Scottish border, there’s a big rock that says Scotland and there’s a bagpiper. Like, if we needed any more sensory overload to set the scene, the bagpiper just made it. It was so cool.
On Balancing Academics with Exploration…
It’s really tempting to always go out and do fun things. But you have to realize that, you are here for a reason, you are here to study. It was easy for me because our library was so beautiful and exciting that I just went to the library all the time and would just go there for fun, so it was like the library was part of my expedition. And I would just spend free time there reading some of the books, which was lovely. The atmosphere there kind of lent itself to studying and the atmosphere at Cambridge, since it is technically a college town, did lend itself to studying. But there were a couple moments that I had to be like, Okay, I have to skip out on the picnic by the river because I have to write my paper. So just keep in mind why you’re there, and when you’re done doing your homework, just go and have a wild time.
On Living at Cambridge…
Whenever you go to Cambridge, you’re assigned a single dorm, which is really cool. So I was actually living in one of the singles, which was assigned to someone. Like, their name was over the door, there was a piano in the room, but I didn’t want to ruin it , because it was obviously the person’s that lives there.
On the People…
I was so lucky with the group that I had. … They were the most amazing people: so smart, so kind, and so interesting. Fascinating people, and they were all studying such fascinating things, so whenever I think back on Cambridge (and I know this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life) all of those memories are going to be tied to that wonderful group of people that I was with. You might be nervous going into it, but if you’re open to the possibility that these people might become some of the best friends you have, it could happen. Because it totally did.
On Tipping…
Don’t tip. If you’re at a pub, you do not need to tip. I learned that after already tipping a bunch of people. You tip the cab drivers and everything, but don’t tip your waiters. They get a service fee. They’re good.
On Money…
Number one thing if you’re going to the UK: the pound is twice the dollar. You’ve gotta know that. You’ve gotta keep that at the forefront of your mind all the time. Cause if you’re going into a pub and there’s like a deal on four pound ciders, you think it’s great but three ciders later, you’re like twenty bucks in the hole. Not a good thing.
On What She Learned from the Cambridge Lifestyle…
You’ve got to make sure that you have time to really learn and put your homework and your studies first. Because that’s why we’re here. And if we learn that, everything else will follow. So I definitely have been, not scaling back, but taking more time to really invest in my studies and engage in my academic work more so than all the extracurriculars that I love, but that are not why I’m here.
On Her Most Magical Moment Abroad…
I feel like, with England, you read so many novels about it so that going there and traveling through there is like you’re living the novel which is just amazing for a nerdy English major like me. So one of the best experiences was actually going to the Harry Potter studio tour. … We went as a group, there were four of us, to have that experience but to share it with someone who loves it just as much as you do. When we saw the doors to the Great Hall open, and it was the Great Hall: sobs, sobs, sobs. Like, ugly crying. Ugly crying. I couldn’t even speak. You know I like to talk, and I am not one to usually skimp on words: speechless. Absolutely speechless.
On Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf…
Reading in this library, oh my gosh, going to the King’s College library and just finding Sylvia Plath in there, and then finding the Virginia Woolf Miscellany….Virginia Woolf, in her time, she was barred from Cambridge libraries, because women were not allowed in Cambridge libraries unless they were accompanied by a man. So to be in those libraries and to read her work whenever she wasn’t even allowed to enter the library without a man’s authority, like, what is this life? That was just a crazy, crazy moment.
On Ghost Tours…
The one thing I would advise you not to do is, don’t go on a ghost tour. I went on a ghost tour in Edinburgh. … I don’t know if I can go back to Edinburgh, I was so scared! Also the tour guide was just a really good storyteller, so that was cool, but it was terrifying.
And One More Amazing Moment:
We woke up at 6 in the morning and climbed a dormant volcano carrying champagne and orange juice, popped mimosas on top of this volcano, and on one side of the volcano was a double rainbow, and on the other side was the sunrise. And here I am, just like, I don’t know what to do. My life is just overcoming me right now, and I don’t know what’s happening. It was a series of events that I couldn’t even fully appreciate in the moment because they were so surreal. I tried to journal about it, but it’s like, how do you put this experience into words?
All photos courtesy of Jenny Schollaert