International Week set for Oct. 21 through Oct. 25

Sometimes we forget that outside of Milledgeville, or our hometown that we come from, there is a whole other world out there.

For that reason International week was created, a week of events and activities all geared toward educating students about the way other cultures live and communicate.

In its sixth year of existence, the operators of International week have very high hopes that this years festival will surpass the rest.

“There was a program that existed before International Week, but it was no where near this level,” said Dr. Dwight Call, assistant vice president of the International Education Center. “We have centered our celebrations around the founding of the United Nations, next Thursday is the U.N.’s 57th year in operation.”

International day is not only an opportunity for students to revel in the ways other nations operate, but its open to the entire community.

“Not only GC&SU students come to the activities on campus, but we usually have involvement from many other community members,” said Libby Davis, international student adviser. “We always have more than 400 school kids on campus from all over the community.”

The very active international club is in charge of International Day. This gives the international students a lot of opportunity to share their talents, and special skills from their homelands.

“On the International Day there will be a lot of international based games and activities,” said Call. “There will also be a few student and faculty presentations.”

One of the favorite and most popular activities last year was the discussion panel.

“Last year there was a great response to the discussion panel that we had about Sept. 11,” said Call. “Some of the students and faculty felt that there really wasn’t too much of an outlet for the topic on campus, and wanted to voice their opinion about the tragic events.”

During international week students and faculty will also have an opportunity to learn about the study abroad programs that many students have already taken advantage of.

“Students who want to study abroad and are nervous about it aren’t alone,” said Davis. “The trip doesn’t have to be as expensive as most people think. Many of the students that go on these life-changing trips get funding from all over. There are many scholarships to be had, and funding is out there. There are a lot of opportunities out in the world that students should take advantage of. Being in a liberal arts school, it is very important that students get outside of their comfort zone.”

International week is expected to be bigger than ever, and there are going to be many new events happening.

“We are expecting to have more than 500 people participating in events every day,” said Call. “Every week is an international week in a way, the world is all around us, hopefully with this week we can help everyone connect with the world a little bit more.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 18 2002. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry