by Madison Mestan| Summer 2024 |
Studying abroad with the Art + Design department was something I’ve been looking forward to since before I even started at ACU. While I was incredibly nervous, I took a leap of faith that would pay off so much in the end. Our group started off with 3 weeks in Oxford, where we had class every day of the week, street photography and plein air painting, visited museums, took day trips to London, a day trip to Bath, and explored the city. Oxford was on the cooler side, which made it difficult to do outdoor painting, but we made it work. Our class would walk to different parts of the city, take a bus to Blenheim Palace, or bring a sketchbook to London and Bath to capture what we’re looking at in the moment via ink, watercolor, or simple pencil sketches. As an Interior Architecture & Design major, I’m used to more technical drawings, so having more of an artistic style for this class was harder than I thought it would be.
From there, we took a bus to Salisbury, England, where we were a 5-minute walk from the gorgeous Salisbury Cathedral and spent lots of time in and around the building, depicting it on paper. We only spent about 4 days there, but it was a formative time for our group in which we got significantly closer to one another. Then, we went on to long-awaited Madrid, Spain, and everyone was ready for warm weather. We spent one day at the museums, followed by four free days, during which most of us spent time relaxing due to exhaustion. Madrid was more city-like than I expected, but it was definitely cool to experience Spanish culture. Next, we went to Italy, where we stayed in Arezzo and took day trips to Florence, Siena, and San Gimignano. Italy was by far the best part of the trip, since we got to spend a lot of time exploring rather than in class. The food was incredible, the sights were gorgeous, and the museums were so interesting – we even got to see the Statue of David. We ended our trip with 10 days in Vienna, Austria, which was a cool city, but difficult as we were all super tired by this point. But we explored Belvedere Gardens, Schonbrunn Palace, and other museums and places, wrapping up our coursework and doing final critiques.
Easily the best part of studying abroad was getting to grow in community with the people I was traveling with. I will never take for granted the amazing friendships that came out of this trip and the unique experience of traveling around Europe with my classmates. I learned how it is to be a foreigner in another country, I grew in self-confidence and am proud of myself for completing a 7-week journey away from home, and I have a stronger appreciation for fine art as well as newfound skills. Studying abroad was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I do not regret a thing and would recommend it to anyone.
