The Path Home…
The view from Glastonbury Tor, one of the sites visited by the Myths and Legends course.
ASE Alum and tutor Sebrina Varley (Sp17, Wellesley) reflects on the path that brought her to Bath and ASE… again.
I said when I was eight years old that I wanted to move to England. I also said that when I turned 18, I was going to dye my hair red and change my name to Ariel, so I don’t think that my parents particularly believed me, but my heart was set.
Specifically, my heart was set on Oxford, and over the next twelve years, my goals didn’t change. I was going to move to England.
When I went to Wellesley College, it was like a whole different world. I had moved from a podunk town in Missouri, and New England felt like a dream. But I knew I was only halfway there. New England was not England enough for me. When I reached the end of my sophomore year, I started looking at study abroad options. Naturally, my mind went straight to Oxford – where else would it go? But one day when I was talking to my advisor, she mentioned that Oxford might not be the right place for me. As a former Rhodes Scholar, she of all people would know. That professor knew that I struggled with anxiety and depression, and told me honestly that she knew of a study abroad program that she considered a better fit for me: Advanced Studies in England.
Professor Wall-Randell told me all about the program, its small size, active seminars, and personal connections with staff. And the opportunity to take a tutorial at Oxford. I was sold. I applied for Spring 2017 and was accepted, and I’d never been more excited in my whole life. I was finally going to England.
Sebrina (left of picture) and the rest of the Spring ‘17 Myths and Legends class, on top of Glastonbury Tor.
From the moment I stepped off the plane, England felt like home. Well, maybe not London, but Bath certainly did. It was everything that I loved about Wellesley and more. I’d never felt so at home anywhere in my whole life, and I hadn’t been in Bath a week before I was determined to come back after I finished my undergrad. ASE was all I could have hoped for and everything Professor Wall-Randell made it out to be. My favorite course was Myths and Legends of Britain and Ireland, taught at the time by Bex Lyons from the University of Bristol.
Though my time at ASE was far from smooth – every semester has that house that just doesn’t gel, and that semester, it was mine – but it was a phenomenal experience. When I was forced to go home, I swore that I would return one day.
When I told my father I was only applying to graduate schools in England, he almost had a heart attack. He did everything to try to convince me to stay Stateside, but I wouldn’t be swayed. “How will you live without your cats?!”, he cried dramatically. Of course, I’d lived away from those cats while at college for four years by that point, but he didn’t seem to realize that. I applied to Oxford and Cambridge, naturally, but, just as naturally, rejection letters were soon to follow. The University of York and the University of Bristol, though, both said yes, and with a Fellowship from Wellesley ready to pay the tuition, all I had to do was choose between them. I ended up in York because I heard the city was most like Bath and the medieval literature department there was stronger, and that’s where I met my lovely British husband, Philip. I told him on our first date that I planned to move to Bath as soon as possible, and we relocated there less than three years later.
When applying for PhDs, though, I remembered Bristol, and I contacted Bex, the former Myths and Legends tutor. I eventually got accepted to a PhD at the University of Bristol, and Bex was one of my advisors. I still lived in York for the first year and a half of my PhD, and, in that time, Bex entirely left academia (completely unrelated to me, or so she said!), my other advisor went on maternity leave, and I got two completely new advisors. By the time I moved down to Bath, everything looked a bit different than I had planned, but I had made it. I was living in the city I loved.
Of course, the first thing that I did upon moving to Bath was email Jonathan. As someone who loves to teach, I secretly hoped that there would still be a place for me at ASE, the first place I was truly at home. It wasn’t until I got married and switched to a marriage visa that I was able to do that, but I got there eventually. When I got the email from Lucy asking if I could teach Myths and Legends – my favorite class ever, the class that was my doorway into my PhD – I jumped and screamed with joy. It had all come full circle. I was going home.
Sebrina leading her course study trip at Cadbury Castle.
I’ve now been teaching at ASE since Spring 2023, and I could not love it more. A part of me was worried that the transition from student to tutor would be hard, but it wasn’t. Somehow, despite all the fond memories of ASE, my time there was somewhat fuzzy. When Lucy told me about the diagnostic and final, I told her, “Well, we didn’t do those when I came.” When she told me that, actually, we did, I was shocked.
Over the past two years, I have taught at the University of Bristol, Cardiff University, and ASE, and by far the best experience that I’ve had teaching is at ASE. The students are engaged and energetic. I have control over my own syllabus. The discussions are unrivalled.
When I turned 18, I did not dye my hair red and change my name to Ariel. Some childhood dreams fade. But others don’t. I may not have gone to Oxford, but I went somewhere better. I came to ASE, a place that has been my home since 2017.
No matter where I go, I’ll always find my way back here. I’ll always find my way home.
We’re looking for more content that we can use in these blogs.
Specifically, if you are an alum we are looking for stories of how your time at ASE changed, shaped or impacted on your professional life
If ASE was transformative for you, we’d like to share what made the ‘ASE Difference’.