Literature, Travel, and the Magical Orange

If I think hard enough, I can see myself sitting in the back row of the bus on my way to London. I can feel my headphones on the backs of my ears and the jet lag pulling my eyelids shut. I’m a student again in high school on Hillsdale’s Land and Literature of England High School Summer Study and Travel Program. Sure, it was a trip that had me reading Milton and Chaucer, but it was also an opportunity to find invaluable out-of-text experiences: wandering Oxford’s cobblestone streets, listening to the Beatles while driving through the English countryside, and ultimately gaining a whole new perspective.

I remember first researching the opportunity on my high school’s library computer, daydreaming. The idea of studying literature in another country felt daunting and grand and everything that I could have wanted. When push finally came to shove and I applied and was even accepted into the program, I practically ran out the door. Within a few days of arriving to campus and listening to lectures about the assigned readings, I was landing in London and was miles away from everything I had ever known.

The trip itself was a full one. One night at the Globe Theatre, I began to get a migraine and was in desperate need of a snack. I had nothing with me, and since we were standing for the whole performance, I needed to act quickly. I left the audience and headed to the bathroom. On the counter was a single, unpeeled orange. Nothing in my life has ever been so perfectly timed. I ate this magical gift on the patio of the Globe Theatre, looking out onto the silhouette of London. Soon, a few other tired students joined me and we shared in the magic together before the performance came to an end. I remember this orange, and that time with friends, and the lesson that beauty is always around us. In our books, in our peers, and even in our quiet moments of need, beauty is just around the corner, waiting to be discovered.

Whether it was receiving lectures from Dr. Whalen under a tree in Stratford-upon-Avon or wandering among the ruins of Tintern Abbey, the two weeks I spent with students from all over the country and Hillsdale staff were nothing short of transformative.

There is a cliché about students who study abroad: when they come back, they act as if they’re entirely new people. I wish I could contradict that cliché, but in my case, it proved itself true. I’ve never been the same since my trip to England with Dr. Whalen and the random group of kids I went with that year, some of whom I still keep in contact with. I transferred to Hillsdale after my freshman year at a state university.

There are a lot of reasons for this decision, but I remember how enriched I felt as a Hillsdale summer study student. The lectures, the texts I engaged with, the places I visited all meant so much to me. I wanted my education to reflect the feeling of wonder with life that I felt on my Land and Literature of England trip. Even within my first semester here, I can honestly say that I felt some of that jet-lagged adoration of the small details of life come back to me. Hillsdale is a place that will continually inspire you to be better: what more could you ask for?

So to the anxious high school student who might be reading this, the opportunity is worth more than you can imagine. If you’re interested in stories, life, and what some of the finest professors of Hillsdale College have to offer, this program is for you. Maybe a magical orange will present itself to you, too, in a moment of need?

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Alexandra Hall is a Hillsdale journalism student from Colorado Springs, Colorado. She writes for the College’s student newspaper, The Collegian, and co-hosts a WRFH Hillsdale College radio show called “I’ve Got Aux.” In her free time, she interviews musicians for her website, Rocka Magazine.