{"id":1621,"date":"2019-03-07T00:10:15","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T00:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=1621"},"modified":"2024-08-02T16:27:19","modified_gmt":"2024-08-02T16:27:19","slug":"studying-abroad-at-kings-college-london","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/the-words-march-2019\/studying-abroad-at-kings-college-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Studying Abroad at King’s College London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Isabel K. Taylor \u201921<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This month, <\/span><\/i>The Words <\/span>is thrilled to share some writing from a guest correspondent, the English Department\u2019s own Isabel Taylor. Isabel is a a sophomore English literature major and normally works as an office assistant in the department, but this semester, she is studying away in London. Read on to hear about her exciting time abroad.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\"Isabel
Isabel (the author) in front of Buckingham Palace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Barely a week after New Year\u2019s 2018, I hopped aboard an overnight flight from MSP to London Heathrow, filled with excitement and caffeine. I had chosen King\u2019s College London for study away in order to focus on my English major, but the truth was that I had no idea what to expect. Today I\u2019ve been at King\u2019s for one month and fourteen days, and I\u2019m no less thrilled by my classes than I was the day I arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides a deeply unliterary course in management accounting, I\u2019m taking three literature courses, all focused on my particular interest in Early Modernism: \u201cRenaissance Wordplay,\u201d \u201cThe Film of the Play,\u201d and \u201cA Mad World My Masters: Performing Culture in Jacobean London.\u201d \u201cRenaissance Wordplay\u201d is my favorite, being a deep dive into the textual layers of poets such as Herbert, Milton and Donne. \u201cThe Film of the Play\u201d explores film adaptations of Elizabethan tragedies such as Shakespeare\u2019s <\/span>Titus Andronicus<\/span><\/i>, Marlowe\u2019s <\/span>Edward II<\/span><\/i>, and Middleton\u2019s <\/span>Revenger\u2019s Tragedy<\/span><\/i>. We watch a new film every week \u2014 in class! \u201cA Mad World My Masters,\u201d which takes its name from one of our studied plays, examines the Jacobean era of theater which followed the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Taken together, I am happily overwhelmed in getting to study so much of the period that I love.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"King's
King’s College London at the Strand<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Upon arrival, I attended a seminar about the differences between the British and American schooling systems. Instead of multiple class periods a week, each course has a weekly \u201clecture\u201d period and a \u201cseminar\u201d period, each of which is an hour long. All students in the class attend the lecture period, which involves no questions or discussion; that much is saved for the seminar period, which includes a smaller portion of the class in an hour\u2019s open discussion. As a result, I have only eight hours of class time a week. Much of the rest I devote to reading, as I read on average three plays and an accounting chapter every week.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, London is the place to be for anyone enthusiastic about Early Modernism. The city is chock-full of literary history, from a Shakespeare walking tour that I took in my first week, to the painting of John Donne hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, which I saw in my third. Shakespeare\u2019s Globe offers great student discounts to their amazing performances, and the National Theatre also puts on great Shakespeare performances; I attended two different performances of <\/span>Macbeth<\/span><\/i> within my first two weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Waterloo
The view from Waterloo Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Altogether, my experience abroad has already been a life-changing experience\u2013\u2013and I still have almost four months to go! There are no classes this week, so I plan to make a pilgrimage to Stratford-Upon-Avon in a few days. For its unparalleled depth and rigor of study, I would highly recommend King\u2019s College London to any English major.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The Words <\/em>extends a big thank you to Isabel and sends our best wishes for the duration of her semester abroad!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Isabel K. Taylor \u201921 This month, The Words is thrilled to share some writing from a guest correspondent, the English Department\u2019s own Isabel Taylor. Isabel is a a sophomore English literature major and normally works as an office assistant in the department, but this semester, she is studying away in London. Read on to hear […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":1793,"parent":1613,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1621","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1621"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7377,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1621\/revisions\/7377"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}