Abigail Alinda's Oxford Study Abroad Experience
September 17, 2026
The Religious Studies Department is excited to feature one of our majors, Abigail Alinda's transformative study abroad experience this past summer. Take a look at Abigail's reflections and photos from her time in Oxford!
"For six weeks, I studied abroad at the University of Oxford during the summer of 2026. Being in the UK taught me a lot about football (not soccer) during the World Cup and dry British humor. Oxford in particular offered several natural spaces, Gothic libraries, and cafes at every corner.
My favorite course was called How to Read Paintings. Learning about the unique touch of Dutch Golden age painters and the dreamy quality of 19th-century Impressionism, however valuable, was not as important as the particular skill through which we studied various art periods: the art of looking. There's something deliberate about noticing the direction of brushstrokes, looking at what is there and what is left out, and thinking about what feeling each painting seeks to evoke. This patient way of looking is not just applied to visual culture and has taught me how to look at the world beyond a casual scanning. In a way, life itself is art, and I've come to appreciate it more with every sight I encounter; it is even more deserving of deliberate observation by virtue of its transience."