Lesson in Love: Study abroad led to this Pirate’s happily ever after
Life-changing is a phrase most students use to describe their study abroad experience. East Carolina University alumna Laurel Truelove Currie ’10 didn’t know just how much study abroad would change her life story.
James and Laurel Currie, who celebrated their marriage in 2014, have a daughter, Charlotte.
Through her involvement as an EC Scholar — now known as Brinkley-Lane Scholars — Currie was encouraged to study abroad.
“At the time, scholars did not have the stipend for study abroad,” she said. “They encouraged it — in fact, strongly encouraged it — because it really is a beneficial learning opportunity.”
She chose to attend Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England, due to her desire to stay in an English-speaking country and its strong mathematics program that would complement her mathematics education and mathematics degrees. While there, she became friends with other Americans studying abroad and local university students, including Briton James Currie.
“We all had a friend group that met at the student union, and we all hung out while we were there,” she said. “That was the spring of ’08. When I graduated in 2010, I used a little bit of what was left over from my EC Scholar award to go back to Europe and travel. James made the drive down from London to see me and my friends, and we reconnected.”
Laurel and James officially began dating a couple of months later. After a year and a half of a long-distance relationship, they discussed their options for the future. At the time, James had not finished his degree at Manchester, and decided to finish his education in the United States at Pitt Community College.
“The year and a half that we did long distance, he was working in the UK, and I was completing my master’s at the University of Georgia,” she said. “When I finished that in December of 2012, we both moved to Greenville to test things out and see how it went. Then we got engaged and married in June of 2014.”
Study abroad champion
Laurel’s mother Lea Ann Nichols is celebrating the study abroad experience that brought Laurel and James together with a gift to ECU during Pirate Nation Gives (PNG). Nichols is a PNG champion this year for the Honors College. Her $5,000 gift to the college’s priority fund will support high-impact experiences for students, specifically study abroad opportunities.
Currie said that studying abroad gave her a broader horizon for her profession as an educator and helped her become less anxious about new experiences. It’s an experience that she knows students would benefit from but understands that it can be cost-prohibitive. Being able to provide study abroad scholarships is important to her and her family.
“It provides opportunities to students who otherwise would not have it,” she said. “Students bring back so much from their experience — culturally, socially, academically — it just expands their horizons. I think that’s one of the biggest things you can give someone, the ability to live bigger than they thought. The initial investment is going to pay dividends on what they are able to pursue and build upon.”
A Pirate family
Laurel Currie immersed herself in Manchester during her study abroad experience in England.
After their marriage, James joined Laurel in becoming a Pirate alumnus by earning his bachelor’s degree from ECU. They now have a four-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and have traveled back to England several times to spend time with his family.
When looking back on her study abroad experience, one of the things that Laurel is grateful for is that it pushed her out of her comfort zone. She was unable to take math courses like she had originally planned but was able to fulfill her English general education requirements.
“English was definitely not my comfort zone, but I got to take amazing courses like Austin and the Brontes, contemporary Irish literature,” she said. “I got to take fictions of the American South, which was hysterical. It broadened my horizons on academics and then, obviously, meeting James was amazing for the path that it set up for us.”
She encouraged students to take advantage of a semester-long program for a true immersion into the culture.
“I didn’t really settle in for like the first three weeks. I was so homesick and I’m an only child. I had never really left eastern North Carolina,” she said. “I felt like if I had only been there for three or four weeks, I would have felt like I was more on vacation and not actually meeting people, interacting, and becoming a part of Manchester.”