By Natalie Mahlum
During Spring Interim, eleven Concordia students took a weeklong trip to London, England. The trip was organized by the English department.
“It was really cool to see where all of these things were happening and immerse myself in what it could have been like to be in these times of British Literature” said Jocelyn Laux.
This was the first time that Amy Watkin, who teaches English at Concordia, had taken this trip with a group of students. Along with Watkin and the eleven students, Assistant Dean of Students Heidi Rogers also tagged along to supervise the trip.
The group had a home base in London, staying at a hotel there every night. From there every day they ventured out to surrounding cities and sights.
Some places on their itinerary consisted of Bath, the city containing the home of famous writers Jane Austen and Mary Shelley as well asthe Roman baths. They also visited Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey, The Tower of London, Windsor Castle, and attended a West End production of “Hadestown”.
Being in London sparked a huge opportunity for these students to truly understand the context of the stories that they have read and analyzed.
“It helps our accessibility to the writing and the literature to think that these [authors] are really good and there’s a reason that we study them, but also, they were just living their lives. We were walking the same streets that they walked on this trip and thinking about some of the same things that they had thought about” said Watkin.
“I am standing where these people actually stood” said Laux.
There is also a lot to learn from a trip like this for a non-English majors.
“I think it opened up my eyes to see how important literature and a liberal arts education is. Exploring art, exploring literature, doing stuff that isn’t just business and making money,” said Leo Olson, a 2nd year healthcare leadership major “It really helped open my eyes to see that there’s more than just my career”
“Any time that you can pull back into history and literature, you’re learning empathy, you’re learning about the world around you and the ways in which context is kind of everything, you know, you can’t just take something out of context and feel like you’re right about it. So I think all of those things are really important in life and studying literature specifically” said Watkin.
Watkin hopes to offer this trip every other year for any students that are interested.
