Gabrielle Hardoin

How did your time at Harlaxton impact your college studies and transform you?

As an English major, it was incredible to read and study famous works and authors (Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Woolf, etc.) in the country where they lived and wrote! Being closer to London also gave me the opportunity to see many plays, including seeing Macbeth at the recreated Globe Theatre! I am also incredibly passionate about the importance of creating safe spaces for people of color and, while I did spend most of my time in England which is predominantly white, I still developed intercultural communication and acceptance in a way that is simply not possible without traveling and interacting with people of different cultures!

What was your favorite thing about studying at Harlaxton?

I have a couple. Being a Covid graduate (I graduated high school in 2020), I never felt like I got the true college experience. Harlaxton was the first time where I really felt a part of my college community and also where I made an enormous group of friends. I now live with three of the people I met at Harlaxton, and our core group hangs out pretty much daily! I am so grateful to have met them, including my fiancé! I also love how accessible and real it made travel for me. Being from a small town, travel always seemed too expensive or too complicated to be possible for me. Now, I have the experience of participating in guided trips and creating my own, and I cannot get enough of it!

Do you recommend studying abroad?

Absolutely! I always thought it was cliche how everyone always talks about how much it changes them, but it is completely true! I loved my time abroad so much and it opened so many new opportunities to me that I plan to live in Scotland for a period of my life!

Do you have a favorite trip from your time spent abroad?

I have so many and I am not sure I could pick an absolute favorite, but there is one that will 100 percent stick with me for the rest of my life. My now fiancé and I took a trip to Scotland where we toured the Scottish Highlands, visited the Isle of Arran, and saw our first comedy show! We also visited my ancestor’s castle, Graham Castle, where my fiancé proposed! That one trip is a story I know I will share for the rest of my life.