British studies prove a life-changing experience

As she prepares to start her senior year at the College of St. Benedict, Taylor Pederson of Holmen is looking at a major change in her life’s direction, thanks to a semester spent studying abroad.

Pederson spent spring semester in London as part of a study-abroad program offered in partnership with the Foundation for International Education. A psychology major, she did an intership with University College London’s Psychology Department, where she worked with doctoral degree students on research projects dealing with speech.

The experience has her contemplating going to grad school and changing her career path to speech pathology, and her time in London has her wanting to see even more of the world.

“Regardless of what path my career takes, I know I want to travel abroad again,” Pederson said.

The College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minn., is well known for its study abroad program. In fact, another Holmen native going into her senior year there, communication major Natalie Woggon, spent spring semester studying in Australia.

After Pederson’s first year at CSB, she studied in Spain for five weeks during the summer, and this year’s excursion also included side trips to Turkey, Germany, Ireland, France, Greece and Italy. All in all, she said, it was a great experience that has whetted her appetite for more.

“I found an independence that I would not have found without this experience,” Pederson said. “I think I got more out of my study abroad experience than I thought I would. My study abroad experience helped me to learn so much more about the world and myself, and it helped me see things in a different light.”

Pederson said she was struck by how beautiful England was and amazed at how much history there is there. “My favorite thing about traveling through England was just being able to see history that goes back so much farther than anything you can see in America,” she said.

The architecture was so different and charming, she noted, and the food was more different than she thought it would be. She missed food from home and, even more, missed the freedom that comes with having your own car – she used public transport or walked while she was in London.

She enjoyed meeting and making friends with British people and was a bit surprised at the diversity of people in London. “There was not a ‘typical’ British person,” she said.

People there were curious about Americans and had their preconceived notions about what Americans were like.

“One preconception that many people had about Americans was that Americans are like cowboys and everyone owns and carries a gun. Numerous people asked me if everyone in America has a gun,” Pederson said. “It was interesting to hear that some people associate guns with Americans and that some of them are afraid to travel to the U.S. because they believe everyone carries guns.

“Another preconception many people had about Americans is that we do not dress as well as people do in Europe,” Pederson added. “They also think Americans all have very nice, white teeth.”

What struck her about the difference between American and British academics was the British expectations were so broad compared with the American education system. “We would get an assignment and basically get to do whatever we wanted with it, where in America there would most likely be many more guidelines we would have to follow to do well on the assignment,” she said. “Our British teachers all commented on how American students lose a little bit of creativity in their assignments because they are so accustomed to having more structure to follow.”

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