While most of her friends were hanging out, working summer jobs
or playing tournament basketball this summer, HHS scholar/athlete
Erin Carlson was breathing rarified air.
The athletic and affable senior seized an outstanding
opportunity to study both English Literature and Ancient
Civilization at St. Peter¹s College during the month of July in
Oxford, England.
Carlson, who has carried better than a 4.0 high school grade
point average in advanced placement classes during a sparkling HHS
career, was accepted to the Oxford study program after applying
online.
³Last year I decided I wanted to go abroad and expand my
horizons,² said Carlson, who plays both varsity volleyball and
basketball for the Lady Greyhounds. ³I¹ve always been a humongous
book worm and I love to read and write. It was a chance to do
something in England that I couldn¹t do here.²
St. Peter¹s College is one of some 30 schools that are part of
the prestigious Oxford College system. Carlson was placed in a dorm
with a girl from Waltham, Massachusetts, near Boston and the two
hit it off immediately.
³I had a little trouble understanding her at first with her
thick Boston accent, but we became good friends,² said Carlson, who
is hoping to attend an Ivy League college after graduation next
June.
During her month in Oxford, Carlson stayed busy studying Ancient
Civilization three days per week, along with English Literature
classes that lasted three and a half hours per day, six days a
week. She spent much of her spare time sight seeing, reading and
attending Shakespearean plays.
³I got a chance to see five plays while I was there,² she said.
³I also learned to love reading Oscar Wilde and Longfellow.²
With the soccer World Cup tournament coinciding with her trip,
Carlson got a first hand look at the rabid English fans.
³The first night I arrived in Oxford, England had just lost
their soccer match and there was rioting in the streets,² she
said.
