"I chose Luther because being on campus made me excited to learn, and I knew that there were great study abroad opportunities."
“I chose Luther because being on campus made me excited to learn, and I knew that there were great study abroad opportunities,” she says. “I knew a few Luther alumni before I was a student myself and their excitement for the college was infectious. I wanted to be a part of it.”
“My study away experiences in Washington, D.C., and Western Europe (Germany, in particular) had the greatest impact on me,” she says, “I knew I wanted to major in history, and much of the work in my major focused on sixteenth-century Europe. So, participating in a J-Term to study the Reformation in the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands and spending a semester in Münster, Germany, gave me the chance to do some original research for what would become my senior project.”
Rachel spent the summer after graduation at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah and the rest of the year at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. “From there, I moved to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship to study art history in Munich,” she says. “After a year in Germany, I returned to Washington and started working in fundraising at Georgetown University, where I will start graduate school in art and museum studies this fall.”
I had work study at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum the entire time I was on campus, and I also tutored German in the Language Learning Center. Working at Vesterheim was an incredible opportunity to get experience with many different aspects of museum work, and I stayed on for the summer after graduating to help coordinate an annual exhibit for Nordic Fest.
—Rachel Barclay '11
My advisors in the history department challenged the way I read, think, and write about history, and pushed me to pursue opportunities (including Fulbright) that I didn't think were possible.
—Rachel Barclay '11