Hey! Your description says you're a grad student in Switzerland, and it seems from your posts that you're studying English Lit. I'm considering grad school for the same subject (I swoon at Virginia Woolf too), and I was wondering how European universities are with English lit? I always assumed it made more sense to go to school in a majority English country if I wanted to study English lit. What are your thoughts?
I get this question a lot, on and offline. Why on earth would an American go and study English in a non-English speaking country?! For me, one of the main reasons in undergrad was that I’d come from a French-speaking school in the US, wanted to be in a French-speaking environment but not in France, /and/ wanted to do Comp Lit beside English (I studied both). Add all that to the fact that my mom was already living in Switzerland, and Geneva was the natural solution to all my problems. Luckily for me, I found that I really loved the university’s English department, got along well with its methods and its professors, and found that I was challenged but excelled in its environment. Thus, staying here for grad school was another natural choice.
What it all comes down to with grad school is that 1) you make the right choice for you, and 2) you go where the academics you want to work with are. Who are the specialists in your field? Which schools have access to good libraries? Etc. Sometimes you find that the specialists you need are in non-English speaking countries. We have a leading academic on Shakespeare at my school, as well as one on Chaucer and one on Native American studies. Lausanne has one of the top Hemingway specialists. You never really know, and you need to do your research. Good luck!
