Students make summer plans for classes, volunteer work

The warm weather is here and finals are creeping closer which can only mean one thing: summer is fantastically close. Students all across campus are finishing up with their classes as fast as they can to get their summer plans in gear.

Some students are packing up to go home as soon as the last final is in, others are packing for their whirlwind adventures and some may not be packing at all.

While many students take the much-needed time off, many students take the free time to take summer classes. Students make use of summer classes to either catch up or get ahead.

According to Dr. Ed Hale, director of institutional research, undergraduate enrollment for summer courses is increasing. From 2008, undergraduate enrollment has increased almost 5 percent.

However, graduate classes are not as popular. Hale suspects that this summer’s enrollment for graduate classes will decline. As of right now, there are only 686 graduate students signed up for a summer term, whereas last summer had a total of 843. However, people are continuing to sign up for summer classes and a clearer total can be seen in a few weeks.

Corey Cross, a junior art major, will be taking a Maymester course in photography.

“I really like Maymester because it’s really short, but you get full credit hours for a normal course,” Cross said. “You can just focus on that one, single class and that’s great.”

Those lucky enough can take their summer class abroad. This summer, almost 200 students are going abroad. Three of those students are interning overseas, while the rest are going various places, from Argentina and Chile to Bulgaria and Greece.

Emily Davidson, a senior literature major, is taking two classes in Montepulciano, Italy through Kennesaw State University.

“I’m taking summer classes because I enjoy getting ahead during my time off, and I get to do it in Italy this summer,” Davidson said.

While some students choose to travel the world for relaxation, many students will be volunteering. The Baptist Collegiate Ministries send students from all over Georgia on missions all over the world.

The number of students from GCSU that participate in collegiate summer missions through BCM average about 10 or 11 each year. However, GCSU’s BCM is part of a statewide program that sends around 150 and 180 students from colleges and universities across Georgia around the world to serve as missionaries.

While many go overseas, several serve around the country, even right here in Georgia. Some of this year’s destinations are the Golden Isles of Georgia, San Francisco, Yellowstone National Park, Honduras, Mexico and Zambia.

The process to be sent on a mission trip through BCM is a long one. Students interested in going must fill out an application to serve as a missionary and have four to six personal references. After the application process, comes a local interview. Those who pass the local interview then go to a statewide interview. The students spend a weekend with all of the applicants from across Georgia. A missions committee then spends time thinking over the best place for each student to serve.

Junior nursing major, Melissa Rorick is one of the handful of GCSU students going on a mission trip through BCM. Rorick will be going to Zambia for two weeks in May.

“I wanted to do a medical missions trip this summer because I’ve been in the nursing program for a year now,” Rorick said.

Rorick will be working with mobile health clinics and volunteering at an orphanage where the children are orphans of HIV-infected parents. She will also help lead worship and prayer.

For the first week of August, Rorick also plans to volunteer at an orphanage in China that works with babies with cleft palates.

Wherever the students go, Mitch Wesley, the director of GCSU’S BCM, hopes they will come back with a bigger worldview.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on May 1 2009. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry