Many Kenyon students find off-campus study a vibrant — and often life-changing — experience regardless of their destination. But those who choose to study and travel with fellow Kenyon students and professors on one of the Colleges own study programs will have an unparalleled experience, finding a rich array of exciting intellectual and cultural adventures designed to integrate meaningfully into Kenyon's liberal arts curriculum.

The Kenyon-Exeter Program offers you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to study with British students and faculty at a top-ranked British university even as you enjoy the focus, intensity, and intimacy of a Kenyon-style seminar under the familiar guidance of a member of the Kenyon English Department. The range of curricular options at the University of Exeter is complemented by the Kenyon-Exeter seminars expansive schedule of world-class theater and co-curricular travel. Imagine exploring this whole new world of educational opportunity with friends from home.

The Kenyon-Exeter Experience

For more than forty years, Kenyon students have travelled to southwest England as part of this yearlong program. At the University of Exeter, students enjoy full access to classes in the Department of English, part of the larger College of Humanities, which also houses the departments of archaeology, art history and visual culture, Classics and history, drama, film, modern languages and theology. Students also enroll in a seminar taught by their Kenyon professor; the seminars syllabus capitalizes upon the opportunity for cultural and travel experiences in Britain, which are sponsored and funded by the program.

Program Details

My experience at Exeter makes me smile nearly every day. The friends, the food, the reading and the traveling all make up this beautiful life you get to build there. As a third-year student at a British university, you have a fair amount of freedom in choosing your interests and emphasizing different areas of study. The professors are incredible and you have Kenyon faculty right by your side.

Grace Orwick '21
2019-20 program participant

At the University

The Department of English and the College of Humanities are based at the University of Exeter’s Streatham Campus, a lively academic community of about 18,000 undergraduates and 2,600 postgraduates situated on beautifully landscaped grounds at the city’s edge. Ranked in the top five U.K. English departments by several national surveys, and consistently winning top marks in the National Student Survey for student satisfaction, the department offers Kenyon students an array of course choices in literary and cultural history, creative writing, film and film-writing. Kenyon-Exeter students enjoy full access to the curriculum, working alongside their British counterparts in such modules as “Writing the Short Film,” “Charles Dickens and the Condition of England,” “Romance from Chaucer to Shakespeare,” “Advanced Critical Theory” and “Desire and Power: English Literature 1570-1640.”
 
Outside of class, students enjoy an extensive array of extra-curricular clubs, sports, and societies, where many find new friends and new pastimes. The Guild of Students sponsors dozens of club sports — from American football to cricket to sailing to volleyball — and over 200 different clubs and societies, including Amnesty International, the Exeter Student Volunteers, the Soul Choir, the Game of Thrones Society, the Pearshaped Society (an online music magazine), and the Exeter Revue (a sketch, stand-up, and improv comedy club that has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). A perennial favorite among Kenyon-Exeter students is the Out of Doors Society,” which organizes weekly expeditions to nearby Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Southwest coast, and, several times a term, weekend adventures further afield to places like Brecon Beacons and Lands End. 

The City of Exeter and Environs

The Kenyon-Exeter program aspires to full integration of classroom work and co-curricular travel, and its emphasis includes the city of Exeter, the County of Devon, and all of England and the British Isles. Exeter is a city layered with history, from Roman ruins to a stunning medieval cathedral to quays that evoke the great seafaring traditions of Britain’s southwest. Exeter is also a vibrant commercial center whose 120,000 residents enjoy live music, clubs, pubs, art house and commercial cinemas, museums, and a professional theater company housed on the University of Exeter campus. London is just over two hours away by rail, and train and bus links to major British cities are numerous. Plus, Exeter’s airport offers inexpensive air travel to European destinations, perfect for those who wish to travel to the continent independently. Just outside of Exeter — a mere half-hour by train — lies the beautiful, ecologically diverse Atlantic coastline (cobbled shores, sandy beaches, towering cliffs), not to mention two spectacular national parks (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and scores of historic villages, country houses, archeological sites and castles.

Exeter was a wonderful and eye-opening education and cross-cultural experience. The program was a beautiful complement to my Kenyon experience. I had the privilege of learning to love both communities and eventually integrate both of them into my life abroad and afterward.

Emmy Roday
2019-20 program participant

Kerry Strader

Associate Director of Off Campus Study CGE
Contact
Email Address
straderk@kenyon.edu