If you were 19 years old and had to spend a year at one of these places, which would you choose? And why?
A) Reed College
B) UC Santa Barbara
C) Deep Springs College
D) Shimer
E) Sewanee
F) Oregon State University
G) Maine Maritime Academy
H) McGill
I) Northwestern University in Qatar
J) The University of Tokyo
K) Oxford
L) Lamar State College - Orange
Out of those choices, my nineteen-year-old self would have jumped at Oxford (and I think it is still what I would choose for my nineteen-year-old self if I had to make the choice today, although I suspect it would have been far more difficult and alienating and hard on the ego than I could then have imagined). It's hard to go wrong with a year in the UK.
ReplyDeleteIf I got to do it now, as part of some sort of exchange-professor deal, I'd go for Qatar or Tokyo (a brand new part of the world, in both cases). Although I'd be kind of tempted by Reed, just because it's the sort of place that I thought was my dream job when I was in grad school, and I'd be curious to see whether the reality measures up.
Oxford. I would kill to have an actual excuse/reason to go abroad.
ReplyDeleteMy 19-year-old-self would have thought that Oxford meant Ole Miss, so pass. I wouldn't know the rest, so I would have chosen Deep Springs--thinking that hot springs would be a good way to relax after a grueling day of missing most of my classes.
ReplyDeleteSince my own incomparable undergrad alma mater didn't make the list—Oxford, hands down. Mr. Penny and I had the immense pleasure of visiting there just last month (as tourists, not as academics), and Lord have mercy, I could have stayed forever. I know a number of Oxford grads and they all loved, and love, the place.
ReplyDeleteBesides, Lord Peter Wimsey is a Balliol man. What better evidence do you need?
The 19-year-old EC1 was even worse at making decisions than the current version, and would probably have ended up at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang.
ReplyDeleteOxford is indeed lovely*, but I think a year at Deep Springs might be quite rejuvenating.
*unless you need to rent a home or park a car. It's then one of the worst places in the UK.
I think that's one of the problems with middle-aged fantasizing. We tend to remember things like the need to rent a place to live, even if we can do without a car. And we realize that we don't really want to live without a kitchen, and with the bathroom down the hall, for months on end.
DeleteNot thinking about such things in advance does give 19 year olds more options.
Rack up another vote for Oxford, for my 19-year-old self, my current self, or most selves in between. At 19, I definitely would have been influenced by my father's admiration for the place (and, in fact, I first -- and last -- visited with him when I was 16, and, thanks to his networking with friends, spent a few months in England in an informal internship at a boarding school in Kent soon after I graduated from college, where I did experience some of the cultural dislocation Porpentine mentions. I also fell in love with the gardens, which may have been the most lasting effect of the trip).
ReplyDeleteNow, funds allowing, I'd love a research leave anywhere with a well-established university community: Oxford (either), Cambridge (either), or, for that matter, any of the others on the list. I'm adaptable (but admittedly less so to places where English is not the/a common language; there's some danger of my going from introvert to hermit in such situations. My university has an overseas campus, and I haven't pursued the option of teaching there in part for that reason -- and also because it doesn't look like as good a deal financially as the initial description makes it seem, and because it's in a somewhat unsettled part of the world).
Well, of course College Misery started in Oxford - uh, Oxford, Ohio. So that would have meant zero to me at 19, still. The history and all.
ReplyDeleteI didn't come to understand the magic of searching for just the right campus until well after 19. Late 50s me would be all over Reed and Deep Springs. I applied to a job at Deep Springs years ago and got a phoner but not a visit. It sounded intense, and after a certain age I don't know if the physicality of that place might have just been a pain.
I loved Oxford as a postdoc, but as a freshperson, I would have preferred Santa Barbara, thanks to all surfers and especially what they wear!
ReplyDeleteI think I would have appreciated the culture at Oregon State, but the ocean at UCSB would have been so wonderful.
ReplyDelete