For my STEP signature project, I participated in a Maymester abroad in England and Wales. The program travelled around looking at the history and engineering behind castles and cathedrals. While I learned a lot about the history and importance of these sites, the most valuable experience was living in another culture for a month. Living away from home in a foreign country challenged me to change my views and think in different ways. Even simple actions like making phone calls and getting dinner became more difficult. Without knowing an area well and having limited phone service forced me and other students to explore, wander, and occasionally get lost. Learning to find you way without a crutch I is an important lesson, whether just going to lunch or in life. However, the biggest changes came from conversations with locals and learning about their lives.
I remember one of the most impactful conversations came on the second night of the trip. It was our last night in Salisbury and our group of students found another group of locals around our age at a popular patio restaurant. Talking to people who were in the same stage of life at us let us compare and contrast our lives easily. Learning how college was a less common path and many pursued skilled trade was interesting and a large contrast to most people in the US. Many of the locals also had families which was also very different from young twenty-year old’s in the US. However, except from these minor differences everyone I met there was very similar to us. The commonalities that we all share are much greater than anything that would divide us.
Perhaps one of the subtlest differences was the attitude these cultures took towards their histories. In the US most historical monuments and artifacts are safely preserved behind glass and are to be looked at only. All the sites we visited are preserved as well but you are allowed to climb on castle walls and all of the cathedrals still hold services daily. Additionally, the rest of the communities around these sites are just as old as the sites we visited; they have just evolved over time. As a result, these sites, which could be 900 years old, are interwoven into the culture of everywhere we went. This leads to a much closer relationship with their past than what we have in the sates.
Travelling to both England and Wales also highlighted some of the subtle cultural differences between these two countries. While many people view these as just the same, Wales has resisted English rule for a thousand years and still value its independence, similar to the Scotts to the North. It’s hard to see why in the current day but when you compare the feudal system of the medieval English to the family system of the Welsh it becomes obvious. The English viewed the land as belonging to a select few who allowed peasants to work the land in return for a cut of the profits. The Welsh, however passed on the land to all the sons of their father. To switch from this system to the English way would cause every citizen to lose the land passed down over generations and become little more than slaves to a lord. These people would have spent their entire lives owning their land, which was owned by their parents, grandparents, great grandparents and so on. It would also be their legacy; passed down to their children and their children’s children. To lose all of this and become beholden to an outsider would be unthinkable. These differences still lie under the surface even though our modern world has largely moved beyond this history. Subtle cultural differences and changes like this are difficult to pick up on without experiencing a culture first hand.
Participating in this study abroad broadened my perspective and gave greater context my academics. Studying the castles and cathedrals of England in person showed me how important these feats of engineering where. While I may not be constructing a castle as an engineer in the 21st century the impact of my career can be similar. Understanding the broader picture of my career and how I can be impactful is something I will carry forever.
