Page 14 - 1JeanAnnNewsletter Fall 2012.pub

A LEX M ILLER ‘13

Although it may seem like a cliché, choosing to study abroad during the Spring Semester of my junior year was the greatest decision of my college experience (besides choosing to major in Government, of course). The Skidmore in London program offered me a great chance to study at one of seven world renowned universities in a truly global city.

The institution I had the luck to attend, University College London, was founded in 1862 upon Jeremy Bentham’s philosophies concerning education and socie-ty making it the most inclusive educational institution in England of its time. With an undergraduate enrollment of 12,700 and a concentration on scientific research and ar-chaeology, I did not expect to receive the personal attention and variety of classes that I have come to enjoy at Skidmore. Fortunate-ly, I was pleasantly surprised that the Political Science Department was mainly a graduate institution and offered a handful of classes specifically designed for affiliate (students studying abroad) students and open to regular undergraduates.

The two classes I enrolled in within the Political Science department were “International Development: Politics and Policy” and “Britain’s Constitutional Revolu-tion.” Both of these classes were taught by knowledgeable and articulate lecturers, but I was especially lucky that the latter class was taught by the foremost expert on the British Constitution, Professor Robert Hazell. As part of the class Professor Hazell organized a trip to Parliament to sit in on a committee hearing and a session of both the House of Commons and House of Lords. This was a rare opportunity for a foreign student as,

outside of the summer, it is nearly impossi-ble for a non-UK citizen to gain entrance into Parliament.

My other two classes were more history based, but were as equally enriching as my political science classes. “Reform or Revolution: European Social Democracy 1870-1930” was a historical look at the de-velopment of socialist parties in Europe. My studies focused on various aspects of the European labor movement and the move-ment’s development in countries that had a distinct social democratic movement. The final class I took while in London was “History of Modern Germany,” a class that traced the history of the German State from its beginnings with Otto von Bismarck through the Nazi period and into the present day.

One great benefit of taking classes in England was the opportunity to experi-

ence a completely different educational system from what I had become used to as an American student. The most apparent difference is that each class would meet once a week for a session of 1-2 hours in a traditional lecture setting and once more in smaller groups for discussion of the week’s reading materials. This offered a more con-centrated period of instruction wherein the lecturer was able to speak in depth about the topic at hand.

Preparation for class was the greatest departure from what we are used to in the United States. I received a reading list for each week with a list of required and recommended readings on the topics we would cover during the lecture. These read-ings were both meant to inform us on the topics to be covered in class and to expand our knowledge on these subjects beyond the scope of the lecturer’s instruction. This is a noticeably more independent system of education wherein the student is responsible for exploring his or her own interests to whatever extant they are interested. I was understandably intimidated by the prospect of foraging for knowledge in the vast collec-tion of books and articles available to me, but found the prospect of learning on my own terms exciting and illuminating.

Although education and classes was only one part of my experience in Lon-don, it was integral to my feeling immersed in British student culture. University Col-lege London offered me opportunities that I would not have taken advantage of had I gone abroad through a company. times, frustratingly overcrowded, but afforded me an opportunity to truly feel like a Londoner. My experience in London was invaluable and I would recommend studying abroad to anyone considering it.