Winchester College Exchange Brinton Hoover

This summer I had the pleasure of getting to travel to the UK to go on exchange at Winchester College in Winchester. During the month that I was there I stayed at the boarding house formally known as Fearon's but more commonly referred to as Kenny's. I had a room to myself on the top floor of the house. Every day I ate all three meals with the boys from my house in this house.

They provided this lovely bedding

The view of the house's sport space from my room

While at Winchester College, I took biology, english, history, and a class called Div which is similar to an advisory group that meets for a period and discussing a topic that the teacher chooses. Of the 60ish people that lived in my house about 10 were in my grade. Because of the way the educational system works in the UK with students specializing in their last 2 years in high school the only class that I had people from my house in was biology because people wanting to specialize in medicine took bio. 

My time table. The blank spaces are called "bookies" and are like study halls where you can return to the house

Once classes ended each day I had to find a sport to do until dinner which was at 6pm. I tried out water polo and badminton but I decided on sailing as my primary sport. Sailing allowed for me to get to leave Winchester 2-3 days a week to go sailing on a lake about 45 minutes away from Winchester in Ringwood. While doing sailing, I was able to sail at the southern regional championship for another school called Millfield Shool. I also got to travel with the team up to West Kerby in the north of England for the nationals competition where Winchester came in 4th with the three teams in front being the teams representing Great Britain at the world competition.

The Millfield School Sailing team and I after the southern regionals 

The lake where we practiced during the week and location of the southern regionals

With my history class, I was able to travel to London to visit the Imperial War Museum and have a nice dinner next to the river Thames. The museum had lots of fascinating exhibits with the highlight being the award-winning Holocaust exhibit that featured tons of artifacts and videos of survivors telling their stories. 

The Imperial War Museum

Photo of the entrance to the Holocaust exhibit. Photography was not allowed within the exhibit

Photo after dinner

The boarding school environment really allowed me to meet and get to know lots of people that live all around the world. As a house, we competed in dodgeball, tug of war, and once a week softball. There was a day called athla which was similar to our field day in which all the houses competed in track and field events. I competed in the javelin competition and came 3rd in the upper school.

My house thought I should stand out as the American on the team and had me pose with the javelin

During many of my bookies I wandered around the Winchester College campus and also ventured into the city of Winchester. Both the College and the city had beautiful architecture. The school was founded in 1384 and as such many of the buildings are true pieces of history. Just a short walk from campus was the famous Winchester Cathedral which was built in 1093 and is the burial place of Jane Austin. 

The Winchester Cathedral 

The stained glass of the Cathedral from inside

I would like to conclude with the most sincere appreciation to the Warner family and to Mr. Gioia and MBA for allowing me to go on this exchange. If not for their generosity I never wound have had this wonderful experience.