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Marjorie Lavergne |
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The exchange programs that my university in Bordeaux offers allowed me to spend my junior year abroad. My major being “English and American Civilization and Literature,” the United States turned out to be an attractive destination.
At first, I was eager to experience the life of a typical American student, the sort of life that is often depicted on TV shows to get students excited about the wide range of courses, the differences among people and also the parties organized every weekend. Accordingly, I opted for the University of Oklahoma.
A few days later, and after many hours spent glued to my computer’s screen trying to get a hint of my future life in Oklahoma, I came to check other colleges’ websites. I came across Bryn Athyn College and read a little about its organization and student life. I was amazed by the small number of students and liked the concept of a community-like college. Before filling in the official papers for my departure, I changed my mind and decided to go to Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania.
I have always been in a big university with so many people that it is sometimes difficult to be taken into account. I chose Bryn Athyn College because I did not want to be lost either in a crowd of people or be bored listening to a lecture. I made the good decision, and I found here things that I will take back with me in order to enrich my academic, professional life, and personal life as well.
The College does not count a large number of students, which
adds to the quality of the teaching. Professors in other universities
are as qualified and competent, but one has to recognize that
teaching a class of 200 students is not the same as teaching
a class of 12 students. Bryn Athyn College classes are generally
not over 20, and the smallest class can be of two students!
I have always been used to classes large enough that one could
hide in the back of the classroom and never be noticed by
the teacher. This kind of thing would never happen in Bryn
Athyn College.
At the beginning of each term, we usually introduce ourselves to our teacher and other classmates, which allows each of us to feel at ease in the class. The teacher encourages us to participate in the discussion of a subject, or to express our opinions about the material we had to read. There is no wrong answer, and our opinions are always valuable. As far I am concerned, it helped me to be more confident.
First, I improved my oral English since I was obliged to talk in every class. Besides, we often had presentations which taught me to explain a topic in a clear and informative style – and in a second language. Then I appreciated being able to voice my opinions and interests about a subject. It makes the class more interesting and lively, since everybody discusses about the same topic, shares ideas and respect one another’s opinions.
Surprisingly, we do not take a lot of notes. In France, I was addicted to my notebook. However, here you learn through your interaction with others – not only the teacher but the students. This is a student-centered education, in contrast to a teacher-education in France where only the teacher’s words are valuable.
I am usually shy and I do not raise my voice to say my opinions,
but I learned little by little not to keep my concerns for
myself. If my thoughts are based on a serious and significant
analysis, I would speak them. You cannot hide in small classes.
It has its advantages and inconveniences. You always have
to do your homework because you are an essential element of
the class. Its quality depends partly on your work. But even
this little inconvenience is positive since it compelled me
to work hard and challenge myself.
Finally, I would like to add a comment concerning the content of my classes. In France, I know from the beginning what homework I will have. I will write an essay for each class, read my articles and comment on them. It is the same thing for history, as well as for literature. Part of my motivation of studying abroad was to break this “academic routine.” I was not motivated anymore and I needed some change.
All my classes in Bryn Athyn College had a different flavor. I had challenging, amusing, or even artistic homework. For instance, I created a puzzle for my education class final project. Even if it was not a typed essay, I revised all my courses to include the important ideas in the puzzle. I learned without even realizing it.
In my Shakespeare class, we performed a scene from King Lear, and our staging devices were to be meaningful. We reviewed the main themes of the play to include them in our acting. I became myself a historian in my historical methods class. I had to unfold a mystery and do research in archives to find evidence to support all my arguments. I would not have imagined that I will also attend services at a synagogue, and Islamic, Buddhist or Baptist center. I did a lot of things in those eight months. It was really stimulating and helped to overcome the difficulties related to a heavy workload – because everything was different and thought-provoking. I did not only learn about history, literature and religion, but about a wide range of subjects, which developed my general culture.
As I have mentioned, Bryn Athyn College is a religious college. I am French, which means I come from the most secular country in Europe. Bryn Athyn could therefore have been an obstacle for me and my anti-religious upbringing. On the contrary, what seems to be an inconvenience transformed into an advantage.
They are Swedenborgians and are part of the New Church of the New Jerusalem. Swedenborg had visions of God in his dreams, in which he was revealed a true and new Christianity. The main difference between traditional Christians and Swedenborgians is their belief in the redeeming power of charitable and useful deeds rather than sheer faith.
The consequence of all this? They consider that the way you live your life is more important that what you believe in. Heaven is not exclusive. It welcomes Christians, Muslims or Jews as long as they led a good and respectful life. Accordingly, I did not have anything to fear going there. They will not try to proselytize me, because it is contrary to their vision of religion. People respect and listen to each other, try to understand and help you if you have a problem. They try to be good, charitable and useful for others because this is their gateway to heaven.
Religion was not an obstacle but a help for me to feel at ease because I knew people were not competitive, superficial or gossiping. It felt good to be accepted for one’s personality and not for one’s exterior outlook. Teachers are on an equal footing with students in the sense that there is no real hierarchical differences but a respect for their status and knowledge.
As a consequence, they have a close and trustworthy relationship
with their students. Thanks to small classes, they know their
students well. I felt therefore comfortable to speak in class,
ask for advice and talk to the teacher if I had a problem
with my homework. If my assignment is unclear for me, I can
go to my teacher’s office and discuss the problem. Then
it was really easy to connect with students and I made friends
pretty quickly. At the beginning of winter term, everybody
came to me, introduced themselves and tried to know me better.
I was not lost in a crowd of unknown people and I came to
rapidly identify people’s names.
The Florida CARE trip was an interesting experience. I realized
what the religion meant for them and how dear it was to them.
We were housed and fed in exchange of benevolent work for
the community. We had to get up at 7:30 in the morning to
cut wood, paint roofs and clean the garden. After five hours
of hard work, we were all exhausted but kept working to finish
the work. Everybody was glad to work hard as it was useful
for the community. I challenged myself and saw beyond my personal
tiredness – I was pushed by my will to be as strong
as the others in terms of their devotion for other people.
Finally, I would say that this college is more than an academic center; it is a place where students discover, challenge and improve themselves. Faculty and office staff and students are a family who care about each other. For my part, I gained from all this on the personal and intellectual level.
On the personal level, I learned to feel more confident about myself and appreciate other people’s qualities and specificities. I have been told that everybody had a role to play on earth. Every human being is worth being loved whatever his physical appearance, grades or even religion. This humanistic conception of life is important to recall, especially in a world that becomes more and more materialistic and superficial. I think I will be more careful about people’s personal characteristics that make who they are and their worth.
Bryn Athyn community often appeared to me as an idealistic and unique part of the world – the kind of secure place that cannot exist in the rest of the world because it is not possible in the reality of life. However, I now think that this kind of community is not reserved only to Bryn Athyn. The fact that it is a religious community plays an important role, but you do not need to be a Swedenborgian to share the same humanistic values. That is why I consider that self-reflective and respectful people are able to participate in the development of a better world. My experience in Bryn Athyn College pushed me not to view the world with my cynical and pessimist cultural lenses anymore.
Finally, my “Bryn Athyn Experience” was not only beneficial for my personal and intellectual improvement in the present, but helped me to clear my future a little bit. I have always been interested in North American studies, and my exchange program therefore helped me to immerse into American culture. Besides the fact that I was attending a religious college proved to be even more interesting since I have been awakened to the importance of religion in the United States. Being in this Swedenborgian environment stimulated my interest in the success of religion in one of the most modern and materialistic country in the world.
I was first interested to learn about Swedenborg, insofar as I was sharing the life of Swedenborgian students and wished to learn more about their faith and the doctrines of the Swedish seer. I then registered for an independent study on Swedenborg’s life and times. Little by little I became acquainted with the New Church and I came to study the development of the Church in France.
Interestingly enough, I came to the United States to learn about American culture, but I also learned about my own culture. Being in another country allowed me to compare both cultures and have hindsight regarding my own government, history and society. Actually, I really came across the differences between France and the United States while writing my paper about the New Church in France.
While Swedenborg is on the good track in America, he does not exist anymore in my home country. The anti-sect movement, along with a craze for secularization, announced the end of the religious group which transformed itself into a cultural association.
The failure of the New Church in France epitomizes the role government, history and culture can play in the future of religion. In France, I was not really interested in the future of religion in the world. Would you have asked me: “Is religion going to be important in the future?”, I would probably have given a negative answer. But if I am asked the same question today, my answer would be totally different. Back in my secular France, I undermined the role of religion today.
The success of religion in the United States is not so exceptional. The world is religious, especially in our 21st century with the current conflict between the West and Middle East, or Christianity and Islam. But it is frightening to recognize the tremendous importance of religion in our modern times, since we only associate religious battles to backward and dark times. How come that our modern world is still highly religious?
I took several courses about religion this spring term, which gave me a deeper understanding of religion and its diversity. I have learned about world faiths, the sociology of religion and the New Church at the same time. I have never read or discussed about religion so much in my life. I realized that religion was a part of the world, especially of the United States. If I want to understand Americans, I have to acknowledge, examine and take a better grasp of their religiosity.
As a consequence, I am considering writing my senior paper about religion in America. I had the chance to directly experience Americans’ encounter with religion with the college, but also only by paying attention to the surroundings. It is amazing the number of churches one can see in a small town, and also the plurality of faiths that are accepted and developing. In France, churches are found in the center of a town and are mainly Catholic. To put in a nutshell, my experience at Bryn Athyn College gave me some directions for my future academic studies, and showed me our modern world in a new light.
My stay at Bryn Athyn College was beneficial regarding the improvement of my oral and written English, my capacities to work on the computer, and my ability to deal with a heavy workload. But on the top of all that, I now see my world through cleaner lenses. In effect, we all see and interpret the world through a different pair of lenses, and what we see depends on our nationality, culture, education and personal character.
Bryn Athyn College helped me to have another look at myself, people and the world today. I do not regret my choice, and I am sure that I will still gauge the impact of this experience once I will be back in my home country.
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Penelope Tahutini |
At the beginning of the first term, I was anxious about speaking in class, saying something stupid or incorrect, but quickly I realized that the teachers and other students accept any ideas and all ideas are good and can be discussed. I also didn’t have time to think a lot about it or get prepared. I was in the middle of it so I had to follow what everyone was doing, and I got used to it very fast. It helped me gain confidence and improve my oral skills. Saying what you think or feel in front of an audience (a class or a larger group) is an American feature for me that makes Americans go beyond. Once you are not afraid of speaking then you can do a lot more than when you are shy: you can communicate, exchange with others and learn more.
The amount or the quantity of work is huge compared to France. There is less time spent on one subject and therefore a bit less analysis of the topic but the reflection is still important. It must be quick: you don’t have one month to write a 10-page paper, you have a week or two, but students usually do it in a few days or in one day! The important point is the ideas, the logic of your arguments, and the research you made, more than the technical English or a specific presentation. I learned in writing papers how to make a bibliography, an annotated bibliography, how to use MLA style to write, how to use at least six or seven sources and how to research those sources.
First, I learned how to make a PowerPoint presentation. It
is amazing how simple it is in the end because I thought it
was very hard to do. It is a great way of getting the attention
of your audience because there are visual texts or images.
I learned that using visuals to support your presentation
helps other students understand, follow what you say and get
concentrated. Doing a lot of presentations helps you not be
afraid anymore and improve some weaknesses.
I use the Internet a lot now, for small and quick research
or for more important things. I learned how to distinguish
information on the Internet, what is trustful information,
with references from what is less, and how useful it can be
for your own general culture, too.
Using the network every day with teachers and between students and all the people of the college is a great thing. You get information on time and nobody is forgotten. You give information and ask for help easily and efficiently. It kind of makes you part of the community and know that you also have a role to play in it.
The variety of courses I took improved me in so many areas: literature and history, because that is what I am supposed to learn in France, but also religion and Swedenborgianism that is more specific to the place I was, plus art and sports!
I am able now to research on any subject and not just use my teachers’ notes to understand a subject. I am able to make my own reflection because I have a lot of information and references to work with. I like the idea of using courses outside the major to improve the general culture and therefore the major too: sports and arts and politics and religion and sociology to improve my English literature and historical point of view. In literature, we studied dozens of authors in the two surveys I took, and in Shakespeare we studied eight plays and read them and played Shakespeare! I am also very happy to have studied Swedenborg and the New Church because it is very little known in the world, because it is the religion of the place I studied for one year at, and because it is very interesting and useful for my own experience of life. The independent study on Swedenborg was something I never studied before; it was new and it was the one that most affected my life. It had an impact on my beliefs.
In France, I’ve always learned to be very independent
and do everything myself, and struggled to get administration
forms and school information, to pay bills and all the practical
stuff of life. The Bryn Athyn community is very well organised
and is not just about the school, like I thought it would
be. To live in a community was very helpful for me, especially
this year. You are not anonymous and lost in the crowd of
a city. You are not a number among other students. I could
not hide and do things separately. I was part of a whole by
being involved in the work, in the activities and in the college
life that is the community life. I got to know all the students
in the dorms, teachers whom I had dinner or coffee with, people
who live around the college and whom I met in different occasions.
The college also organizes a lot for students outside classes:
shows, plays, concerts, trips and clubs. It makes you participate
in the student life but also get some culture: The Miracle
Worker and Helen Keller, the Beach Boys, poet Robert
Pinsky, are all part of the American culture I craved to learn
about. I think I gained many ideas of how to be useful, how
to organize something for a group, how to not waste time inefficiently.
Moreover, Bryn Athyn students are very talented. They study,
they work, they play sports, they play music, they volunteer,
they organize and help whenever possible. (That’s why
they don’t watch TV a lot?) It seemed to me that nothing
was impossible for them. ACTION is what I learned from some
of them. Work hard to get it. Do a lot at the same time and
succeed in all is possible. Sometimes they were overwhelmed
too and a bit depressed, but not for long. They craved for
work and usefulness.
What I learned from the religion came little by little and naturally. At first I was suspicious but curious about the religion. The first term I did not always understand what they were talking about when citing Swedenborg and his doctrines. Never was I imposed anything. People never told me, you should do this, you should understand this, you should go to church! The second term, I had an introduction to the New Church doctrines course. It was strange to study religion at a university level. It was very useful because I didn’t know the New Testament at all. I also read some parts of Conjugial Love and did not always agree with everything, especially some words Swedenborg used that I did not understand the same way I understand them now. For example, when talking about simulation in a couple when the two people have problems, I did not agree. If two people are not happy together or if they don’t love each other anymore then they should separate. But it is true also that if the two people don’t try to make their marriage work out, if each one does not make efforts and compromises for the other, then the couple will not work well. Simulating is doing something to change the situation. I remember my teacher saying “Acts precede, willing follows.”
The last term was when I finally understood the whole story
of this religion. By studying who was Swedenborg, what he
wrote, how the church organized and what happened, then I
could see the whole to understand the doctrines, the spiritual
matters, the abstract content. That is when I got affected
by Swedenborgianism. I could rationalize something that is
totally spiritual: God and the sense of our life on earth.
I have to say, I am not converted but I believe in a lot of
what Swedenborg revealed. Many questions on our existence
that I had for years were finally answered. It was a revelation.
Since I got back home, I realize how hard it is to apply those
things I learned and I thought I would do for the rest of
my life. Not being in the environment where everyone understands
and knows about those ideas makes it difficult.
What I learned from the American culture: Bryn Athyn is different from the rest of America. It is a small community. However, I had opportunities to visit other famous places: Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York, Florida, and Ocean City, New Jersey. I visited historical sites and museums and galleries but I also experienced American everyday life in places like Starbucks, Krispy Cream, Giant, Rita’s, the mall, Blockbuster, Burger King, Subway, CVS – things new for me. I liked having a roommate, having a bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese for breakfast, Americans inviting you to do things and being very open and warm when they don’t know you yet, them being very organized, having refreshments after any event and refreshments being what influences people to come, them doing more than thinking and talking, them being generous and simple, them never complaining, never getting angry and mean. I liked saying hi to everyone, even 10 times a day, even at 11 at night! I liked them being very bright and talented and having each one of them their own personality and their own desires and goals in life. I met great people and hope to do things with them again.
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