Have You Heard?

As a student at Georgia College & State University, I, Erin Semple, had an opportunity to study abroad this summer.

Study abroad programs have become overwhelmingly popular at Georgia College & State University over the past two years.

Where did you go for your summer vacation? Well, I went to Greece and Turkey on the study abroad program I participated in. It was a wonderful experience; I learned a lot about Greece, its history, and myself.

GC&SU offers many study abroad programs. One of my friends went to Mexico this past summer, and our sports editor went to Costa Rica. All of these programs cost around $3,000 for a summer semester in a certain country. During the program, students take one or two classes with the teachers in that program. The classes offered during each program depend on the country and the emphasis of the program.

However, the HOPE scholarship can pay for the tuition for these classes. There are also two scholarships, the Weir/Wells study abroad scholarship and the Regents Study abroad scholarship, that will also help pay for the costs, assuming that you quality for them. The HOPE scholarship, Weir/Wells study abroad scholarship, and the Regents Study abroad scholarship helped bring the price for me to go to Greece down to $1800 plus spending money. I am very grateful for that, since I would not have been able to afford the trip otherwise.

I chose the Greece study abroad program because I enjoy learning about Greek mythology and Greek history. There were around 40 of us on the Greece program; we started in Athens Greece, where we saw the Parthenon, and ended five weeks later in Thessaloniki, where we spent four weeks and took our classes. During the first week, we traveled from Athens to Mycenae and Epivardos. Epivardos contains a theatre, which has the best acoustics. Then, we traveled to Olympia and saw the temple of Zeus. Next, we traveled to Delphi and Meteroa, where the Monasteries are. We spent the last four weeks of our trip in Thessaloniki.

We took classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we went on field trips, and we had Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off. I took Myth Meaning, which replaces the core class Fine Arts and Humanities, and Greek Drama, which is on upper level English elective. There were also History, English, Archaeology, Political Science, Humanities and Philosophy classes offered.

During the first weekend, we went to the beach for a full day. On the second weekend, optional trips were offered at an additional cost. Some of the students chose to go to the Greek island of Rhodes, but I chose to go to Turkey with a couple of the professors from our group. Dr. Robert Viau, professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies, the assistant director of the Honors and Scholars program and the coordinator for the Center for Excellence in Teaching; his wife; and Dr. Cooksey, our philosophy teacher from Armstrong Atlantic State University; and I traveled through Ephesus, Prienne, Miletos, and Didyma. I really enjoyed these sites, because they were more preserved and less crowded.

Overall, I enjoyed this trip a lot. I learned a lot about Greece, its culture, and its mythology. My classes were really interesting; we discussed the subjects in detail, which I got a lot out of. The trip was also a hands-on experience, which not only improved the amount of information that I learned but left a profound impact on me. I met many people from all over the United States, mostly from Georgia; I also became good friends with some of these people. I lived with a roommate in a hotel room millions of miles away from my family. I learned to cope with living almost completely on my own and with my daily habits. I also learned to cope with a new environment and a new routine.

I highly recommend going on a study abroad trip to wherever you want. You’ll get to see incredible sites, learn many things, and make new friends. I am really glad I went this past semester; it pushed me to really grow up. I loved almost every minute of the trip, and I would go again in a heartbeat. I hope that you are able to take a chance like this and enjoy it as much as I did.

If you have any questions about any of the study abroad programs, please contact Dwight Call, assistant vice president of International Education, at 445-4789. You can also contact Dr. Viau about the Greece study abroad program at 445-5564.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 14 2001. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry