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Venturing to Scotland, but not to golf |
By Laurent
Bonczijk, Newberg Graphic reporter
E-mail Laurent at bonczijk@eaglenewspapers.com
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Golfers might suffer from
uncontrollable fits of jealousy from reading this: Marissa Riggan,
18, will spend the next four years in St. Andrews, Scotland.
She does not play golf and she has no intention of learning. Golf,
that is. She does plan on learning a lot, but her instruction will
take place at the University of St. Andrews.
The Newberg
High School graduate admits that the distance from home might be a
challenge. “I am prepared for that,” she said. “I have to cut the
apron string for that.”
One of 10 valedictorians at NHS, Riggan was surprised when she was
accepted at the school.
The university was her “reach” school. “I thought I better take a
chance. I need to do this for myself,” she remembers thinking when
she applied.
Riggan wants to major in European history, which explained why she
only applied to two schools in the United States. She found that
most programs statewide required too many credits of U.S. history as
part of their baccalaureate core requirements and didn’t offer
enough specialized classes.
The program at St. Andrews is intense, a fact illustrated by the
fact that it will take her three, not four years to earn the
equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. She plans to stay four years
nonetheless and earn an honors degree.
Her attraction to Europe and the British Isles started a few years
back when her family took a vacation there after her sister
graduated from college. She visited England, Wales and Ireland.
She has also traveled abroad by herself, which seems to reassure
her mother. The summer of her freshman year, she went to Bologna,
Italy, for two months to nanny children she used to babysit in
Newberg. She enjoyed the experience, traveling to Rome, Naples,
Milan and Venice.
While the plane ticket to Scotland and back won’t be cheap, Riggan
said tuition at the 6,800-student school was actually lower than for
a comparable Ivy League school in the U.S.
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Published
June 9, 2007, Newberg Graphic
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