McIntosh England

To Hillsdale, by Way of England

One of my first experiences with Hillsdale College was as a student on the Land and Literature of England high school summer travel course between my sophomore and junior year of high school, an experience that helped me to learn more about Hillsdale College and ultimately influenced my college decision.

I first heard about the opportunity from my parents, who learned about it online while they were doing some research about Hillsdale. I had visited Hillsdale College, but I still had reservations and wasn’t sure this was the place for me. The Land and Literature or England program, then, had a twofold purpose for me: first, to earn college credit, but more importantly, to better judge whether Hillsdale was where I wanted to spend my undergraduate years.

Before arriving on campus to begin our studies, we were tasked with some preparatory reading, John Milton’s famous epic Paradise Lost and Jane Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion, being among the assignments. I came to Hillsdale prepared, and from the first lecture, I knew I was going to enjoy it. Even now I vividly remember sitting in a lecture hall, listening to Dr. Bart reading us the Canterbury Tales in Middle English and teaching us some of the differences from modern English.

Before I knew it, it was time to begin our travels, and as soon as we landed in England, we hit the ground running. On the very first day we saw Windsor Castle and got our first taste of British cuisine. We spent a few days in Windsor, toured the University of Oxford, saw a house that once belonged to C.S. Lewis, visited Canterbury Cathedral, saw Tintern Abbey (the subject of a famous William Wordsworth poem), and visited Bath, all before spending the last few days in the London area seeing all the major sites in that bustling city. My favorite out of the places we visited was Warwick. It was such a quaint town, with all of the history and charm that one would expect. A group of new friends and I decided to go to a local Anglican evensong that we had heard about during some free time, so we trekked out, found our way to the beautiful church, and were delighted to hear the choir. The trip was packed full of vivid memories that I will never forget.

Although the places we visited were magnificent, the people were even better. Nowhere in high school was I able to find people driven by the same things that I was. This trip changed that. The lectures awakened a sense of appreciation and love for the literature we read that I did not think possible beforehand. The professors were amazing, and the locations were unbeatable, but as we like to say here at Hillsdale, “it’s the people.” That was true of this trip. I thought to myself, “if those are the kind of people going to Hillsdale, I have to go there.” This trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and it is the primary reason that I am a student at this wonderful place we call Hillsdale College.

 

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Will McIntosh comes to Hillsdale from Muscatine, Iowa. He is an economics major, Galloway resident assistant, and G.O.A.L. student volunteer leader. His top course recommendation (for those inquiring) is Western Theological Tradition with Dr. Snyder.