Students often study abroad for a number of different reasons—a chance to meet new people, further explore their interests in a way that U.S. schools may not allow them to, and gain a unique perspective. These are all factors that seniors Jeremy Limbert and Sacha Owen considered in deciding to further their education in Scotland.

Limbert and Owen will both be attending the University of St. Andrews. Even though the two are friends, the decision for both of them to attend the same school was not planned.

“It just was a coincidence. I applied to some more Scottish universities, but I was originally thinking of going to [the University of] Edinburgh. But then, […] [my family and I] did some more research and we decided to pick St. Andrews in the end,” Owen said.

Limbert will be majoring in classics at St. Andrews. His interest was fueled by the fact that has been taking Latin since the sixth grade. Although he initially started because he liked the teacher, he also came to enjoy the language itself.

“I kind of like knowing things that no other person knows, and you can’t really get more into something like that than a dead language that not many other people can read,” Limbert said.

Because of the challenges of the pandemic in the U.S., the U.S. schools didn’t have the advantage of being more easily visited compared to the U.K. schools to which he applied, allowing him to settle on St. Andrews.

“I could only visit one [U.S. school] before the pandemic and then I couldn’t visit any others so it didn’t especially [differentiate] the U.K. schools from the U.S. schools,” Limbert said.

Therefore, his decision to go overseas was mainly fueled by the better classics programs in Europe.

“I knew I wanted to go into classics, and it’s not really surprising that the classics programs in Europe, where the languages were spoken and had empires, like Rome, have more about the language and classics in general than most [schools] in the U.S.,” Limbert said.

Limbert is most excited about being able to gain new perspectives from the diverse student body at St. Andrews.

“I’m excited to […] meet a lot of new people because St. Andrews has people from all over the world, it’s like forty percent international students. So it’ll be interesting to […] see their different perspectives on things,” Limbert said.

Owen will be majoring in Ancient History at St. Andrews. His interest in history stems from a passion he has had since kindergarten. 

“You know, you get interested […] [in] these really niche topics like, ‘Oh, pirates are so cool, ‘Astronauts are so cool,’ and then instead of moving on from it, I [continued to enjoy it],” Owen said.

Although the biggest reason for Owen’s decision to study in Scotland was due to having family there, the other reason why he decided to apply to U.K. schools was the greater focus on classes relating to his major.

“The Scottish system is a little bit more focused than the American one. It’s not a liberal arts college, the one I chose. All the courses I can take are only in my major, so I will be taking only history courses for four years,” Owen said.

Owen doesn’t have many reservations about moving abroad as he feels accustomed to being alone. However, the one thing that will change is that he has decided to only come back and visit his family during winter and summer break, rather than during all four vacation periods of the year. Instead, he will be traveling on his own and with Limbert. 

“[I won’t be returning during spring and fall] because plane flights are expensive across the Atlantic. Jeremy and I have already discussed this, but we’re thinking about taking joint vacations in the spring and fall, maybe going into Europe,” Owen said.

Ultimately, Owen is most looking forward to the experience of being surrounded by like-minded individuals who are equally as passionate about history.

“In high school, there are a lot of courses where people are just there for the grade. […] But people go to college for history, so they’re choosing to go into it, which means I’ll be surrounded by people who have the same interest as me,” Owen said.