Students Abroad
Every year, many HTC students leave Athens to study abroad. Read about some of their experiences this year here, and click on Archives (below) for students' study abroad tales from previous years.
Chelsea Toy -- Sophomore, Journalism
Currently interning in South Africa
When Chelsea Toy pondered internship opportunities, she didn’t think about magazines based in New York or trade publications in Chicago. Instead, she opted for an internship in South Africa with Big Issue Magazine.
Chelsea has always wanted to be a journalist in South Africa. In a country depressed by HIV/AIDS and poverty, people fail to recognize the accomplishments of South Africans. “How much hope and positivity there is—that’s what I love about Africa,” Chelsea said, “there is so much good happening.”
On the third day of her internship at Big Issue Magazine, Chelsea received a call from a student at the University of Cape Town who said that he was having a society recruitment fair at UCT that day. Her first assignment was to report on campus activism, but UCT was more than 20 minutes away and it was well over 90 degrees. She hopped in a taxi, which isn’t the safest form of transportation, and interviewed South African students at the university for four hours.
To Chelsea, that was probably the single most empowering day of her life. “I could introduce myself, ‘Hi, I'm Chelsea Toy from Big Issue Magazine.’ I really felt like I was a journalist. I really felt like I was an adult, as well.
“In the States, it is easy to be a journalist. You walk here, you drive there. Here, you must find your way around public transportation, in a city that you don't know, with people you have never met. It's fantastic, and it is great to have that much responsibility put on my shoulders.”
So, what effect has the South African experience had on Chelsea? The trip has confirmed that she is doing exactly what she wants to do for the rest of her life. “I have learned so much about foreign correspondence and working in Africa. I'm learning about young people in South Africa across all races and economic backgrounds, plus I have seen all different sides of South African life.”
Life in South Africa is hard to define. According to her, there are a million different types of “life” there—upper middle class, which has the luxuries of satellite TV (“There is soccer and cricket on all the time!”) and wireless Internet. The ordinary South African life though is rife with power outages, cramped living spaces and lack of transportation or unsafe ways of traveling.
According to Chelsea, the biggest differences between South African and American life are convenience and security. Ohio has a Wal-Mart where people can buy anything they’d ever need, and have the option to choose from a wide range of products—a luxury that many Americans take for granted. South Africans are very wary, too, of theft. Chelsea explained that people have security systems, large fences with electrical barbed wire and “some serious car locks.” “I’ve never had any experiences with theft, but it’s obvious it happens here because people are so poor.
“Oh, and the McDonalds’ don’t sell pancakes,” she said.
Alicia Buckenmeyer -- Junior, English
Studied in Mexico
The following is an excerpt from an email from Alicia, dated Feb. 9, 2007. Alicia is on the left in this photo, along with her roommate Tina Carter, standing in the arch of a ruin at Labna.
"I'm studying abroad in Merida, Mexico, learning a ton of
Spanish, lounging on the beach, and really enjoying every minute here. It's
going to be really hard to come home to Ohio! I'm living with a Mexican family
and I have loved getting to know them. Every Sunday, the whole family comes to
our house for lunch, and there are ten conversations going on at the same
time, but it is the best way to improve in the language.
Besides attending
classes in Spanish four days of the week, I have traveled to different sites,
including Mayan ruins like Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Ek Balam, swam in cenotes,
which are like natural pools which the Mayans used as water sources, and
visited Isla Mujeres, a tiny island with beaches and a turtle farm located off
the coast of Cancun. Everything I have seen is literally breathtaking.
Overlooking the site of a ruin from the top of a Mayan temple is amazing, the
water is more clear than I can describe, and I'm learning 10 times more about
Spanish than I would in Ohio. Through time spent in Merida, I'm learning a lot
about the language and the culture here. I'm learning salsa through classes in
the downtown, and it's interesting just to walk around to shops, and talk to
the people who live here. Carnaval is coming up soon, and I can't wait to
experience that aspect of Mexico as well. I encourage anyone with any hint of
interest in Spanish or Mexican culture to study abroad here! It's been the
experience of a lifetime and it's going to be over way too soon. See you all
in the spring!
Laura Rossi -- Senior, English
Studied in Wales
The following is an excerpt from an "update email" from Laura, which was dated Jan. 12, 2007. She writes...
"Sincere apologies for slacking off on my emails. I've been hearing how much people have missed them, and my only excuses are laziness and an excess of traveling. The good news is, I now have a blog, run by the British Council, here: http://britishcouncil.blogs.com/laura_rossi/
I'll be updating at least once a week, if not more, so it'll be easy to keep up with me. Please, read and comment. This is my first real blog, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll still send emails, of course, but they sometimes will just tell you to go read my blog!
However, to catch up on what I've been up to: Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and Switzerland and Italy! It's been a busy two months. I'll just run through these quickly.
I visited Melissa (a friend from OU, for those who don't know her) in Edinburgh from the 15-20 of November, and it was such a nice vacation. We walked all over Edinburgh, which is a beautiful city, and I think I saw three different views of the whole city from different UP vantage points. And it was so good to be with a good friend, someone who knows me. We watched lots of Grey's Anatomy and caught up, talking incessantly the entire time I was there. And I bought the perfect winter coat in a vintage shop. I'm definitely jealous of her location in that city. We took a daytrip to Glasgow, which is almost shockingly modern after spending time in Edinburgh. We planned to do more than we could, as we got completely distracted by shopping. I can't wait to see her again – she's coming to visit me in a few weeks!
The following weekend I took a daytrip to London, organized by the Travel Shop, on the 25th of November. I wandered the city I love by myself for eight hours, and it was fantastic. When I saw Big Ben, I said to myself, "I'm home." I visited St. Paul's, Tate Modern, Leicester Square, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, saw the Regent and Oxford Street lights, ate roasted chestnuts with mulled wine in Covent Garden in front of the Christmas tree listening to street performers, and nearly cried listening to "Carol of the Bells" on my iPod in Parliament Square looking at the tree in front of Big Ben. It was a marvelous day, and I love that city. So much.
Next up was Paris, the following weekend, from the 30th of November to the 2nd of December. Another trip organized by the Travel Shop, and although I was with a big group of annoying Americans, I covered Paris on my own. I had two days, and I did nearly everything I wanted to. First I climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, which was incredibly impressive. I love vistas. I love going up. Got into the Louvre for free; the Mona Lisa is really impressive in person, more than I expected. The Musee d'Orsay was better, in my mind, because that's where the Impressionists are, and that's my favorite art period. Monet, Degas, Van Gogh… I was in awe. I just stood, and stared.
My favorite part of the city is the Monmartres area in general, and I adored Sacre Coeur. I never wanted to leave it. Saw the Moulin Rouge after that, which was neat to see, and more or less just made me want to watch the movie. I got to visit Shakespeare & Co, the bookstore that features in Before Sunset, one of my favorite movies of all time, and one of my life goals now is to be a published writer to the extent that I get to give a reading in this bookstore and sleep in one of the beds that they have upstairs amongst the books. I also intend to have a room in my house one day modeled after the upstairs of this place; I want to cover the walls with books and then put a mattress in the corner, with semi-shabby (and thus romantic) pillows and blankets. Notre Dame was amazing; I went to Mass there Sunday morning, and even though it was in French, it was pretty cool.
This is getting long – I'll fly through the rest for now. Flew to Geneva on the 14th of December, where I met my great aunt Jackie and great uncle Jean-Robert. Jackie took me around Geneva the next day, and we visited the cathedral, and a very cool Reformation museum, and the best museum I've ever been in, the Bodmer, which houses a collection of manuscripts and books that spans the entire Western canon. If you like books, it will make you drool. We were there for two hours; I kept a list of everything we saw, but it's long so I won't type it. We spent the next twelve days at Verbier, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps… and what can I say? I lived inside a postcard. I skied for ten days. It was sunny and gorgeous every single day, and I ate better than I've ever eaten in my whole life. I got taken care of. It was the perfect vacation.
Then I was on to Italy, where I hit Torino, Verona, Venice, Florence, Pisa, Siena, and Rome. It would take far too long to describe what I thought of each place, though ideally I'll have blog entries about each of them eventually. The food was fantastic, and I had a great time traveling with Maggie, a friend I've made here in Swansea. We're terrible backpackers – we had a hair straightener and eyelash curler, and wore skirts sometimes. *shrugs* That's just us, I guess. It was fun, but it's really nice to be home now.
That's all for now. I've been realizing I've been gone for three and a half months, and still have six more to go. Know that I miss you all terribly, and no matter how much fun I'm having here, I'm wishing you could all be here doing it with me.
Love,
Laura"