Angel Yuan ’25 began studying French in her first-grade classroom in Vancouver, Canada. But she’d never set foot on French soil—or anywhere in Europe—until August, when she arrived in Paris for a semester-long study away experience. “For me, Paris had aways been a faraway dream,” she says. Now she wakes up every day in the City of Light.
Across the English Channel, 542 miles away as the crow—or easyJet—flies, computer science major Stephen Kwak ’25 is adapting to the Scottish educational system at the University of Edinburgh. “Studying abroad, especially in the UK, provides me the opportunity to immerse myself in a new country and gain a global perspective,” he says. “I am originally from Korea and have always been interested in experiencing different cultures and broadening my horizons.”
Renewed interest in off-campus study
The two Pomona juniors are among 96 Sagehens studying away from campus this fall semester through the College’s International and Domestic Programs Office (IDPO). Spread from Argentina to Tanzania, the programs include fields of study ranging from Comparative Ecology and Conservation to Geopolitics, International Relations, and the Future of the Middle East. After a yearlong hiatus during the pandemic and low enrollment in the two most recent academic years, Nicole Desjardins Gowdy, senior director of international and domestic programs, notes a resurgence of interest in off-campus study.
Like Yuan, Sophia James ’25 is spending fall semester in Paris. An environmental analysis major at Pomona, she is using her Paris experience to work on her French and art minors, benefiting from the wealth of museums in the city. She shares a residential complex with more than 200 local students, and if she cranes her neck, she can see the Eiffel tower from her window. “There’s a women’s retirement living place across the courtyard from us with these creative Parisian grandmas,” says James. “They’ll have intergenerational activities where you can make jewelry, do a yoga session or cook. I find them sweet—they’re so friendly.”
At Pomona, James played varsity basketball, and in Paris, she’s joined a school team to continue competing. “It’s not something I expected to do here, but surprisingly, it’s been the most rewarding experience for making friends and for French immersion,” James says. “Something about sports transcends the language barriers, and I’ve been able to make some of my best friends in Paris.”
Experiencing a different style of learning
Stephanie Northrop ’24, like Kwak, is spending the semester in the Pomona College Program at University of Edinburgh. Northrop is a psychological science major and will graduate in May. “Having only arrived on the Pomona campus as a sophomore due to COVID-19, I simply was not ready to study abroad last year,” she says. “I’m really ecstatic that it worked for me to study abroad in the fall semester of my senior year.”
Northrop has relatives in the United Kingdom and “was curious to experience an educational style that is so different from Pomona.” Classes are larger, and students have more responsibility for their own education, she says. Since there is no language barrier, Northrop hoped she would be able to make friends and become involved in university life more easily.
“The most surprising thing for me is how many opportunities I’ve gotten at the university,” Northrop remarks. At Pomona, she was part of the College’s Glee Club. “I knew I wanted to keep singing,” she says. “I auditioned for and got into the Edinburgh University Chamber Choir,” and it has opened doors to the choral world in Scotland. “I have already been delighted to perform with the Scottish Concert Orchestra and look forward to singing in the Royal Norwegian Advent Concert later this year.”
Getting involved in local life
Yuan, too, has found opportunities to get involved in local life during her Paris semester. She recently joined a volunteer tutoring organization, helping primary school students with their homework. “At first I was worried because I’m not a native French speaker,” she says. “But I found that they liked it when I helped them with English.”
Yuan’s full-time academic focus is coursework at SciencesPo, which, she notes, is one of the most highly ranked university programs in the world for the study of politics and of international relations, her major. “The presidents of France have studied here,” she says, adding that “all my classes are in French—high-level, academic French.” Sometimes, she says, she believed that she understood everything, and then “there were moments when I was completely lost.”
Both Yuan and James found that when they first arrived, they experienced loneliness. “I found that because I wasn’t living in a residential campus like Pomona, it was harder to make deep connections,” says Yuan. Both students now, though, say they have made strong friendships during the semester.
Building confidence and making connections
For Kwak in Edinburgh, “adjusting to life in a foreign city built my confidence and adaptability in making friends and connections.” He credits his study-away experience with providing “eye-opening lessons about cultural differences, problem-solving and thriving outside my comfort zone”—lessons he hopes to draw on in his future career which he now foresees might include working abroad.
Northrop shares that perspective. She says she is considering applying to the University of Edinburgh’s Design Informatics master’s program to build on the interest kindled in her Big Data in Psychological Science class.
Northrop says she’s been thinking a lot “about how being somewhere always means there is someplace else that you can’t be.” For all of the students, that place is the Pomona campus, for which they have a heightened appreciation.
But study away has magical moments, such as the day James climbed the Eiffel Tower. “It was pouring rain, and since I’d already bought my ticket, I put on my raincoat and hoped for the best,” she relates. To save money, James had bought a student ticket that required climbing up 20 flights of stairs. The wind was so strong that she noticed some people were struggling to stand up. “But then I got to the second level,” she recalls, “and I looked out over the edge. There was this massive rainbow that spanned across the entire city. It was quite possibly the most beautiful view I’d ever seen.”
“The magic of Paris,” James says, savoring the memory. “The magic of Paris.”