The 15th annual International Week

The 15th annual International Week occurred Oct. 24 to 28 on Front Campus, giving students a chance to explore different options for opportunities abroad.

Alyson Crosby | gcsunade.com

Children from schools in the community gathered around the Japan table eager to learn about culture.

In addition to American students learning about all other cultures, current international students were given an opportunity to give presentations on their countries.

The festivities went throughout the week, with a different activity every day.

The opportunities abroad fair, which was on Oct. 26, focused on educating students about study abroad trips. Libby Davis, associate director of international education, offered her input to interested students at the activity.

“This is something Georgia College has done for the past 15 years, but this year we have 30 tables, and programs from outside the scope of the school as well, such as the Peace Corps and the Japanese Exchange and Teaching Program,” Davis said.

Students were able to visit the tables with specified information on different locations around the world. Some of the countries included were Ecuador, China, Morocco and England. Along with having valuable information at the tables, they also had an educated traveler sitting at the booth.

On Oct. 27, each country represented by an international student was represented by a presentation, a booth and many activities for the local elementary students to participate in, such as swaying along with the ethnic dances of Zimbabwe and Jamaica and learning what goes into couscous, a popular Libyan dish.

When asked, the international students at GC were more then happy to talk about the countries that they were from.

“We are here just trying to tell kids about Sweden as a whole, what our capital is, what we are famous for, and their favorite, the fact that we have three more letters in our alphabet then in the English alphabet,” junior marketing major and Swedish exchange student Wictor Andersson said.

The Latino Student Association had a similar response.

“We represent all of Latin America, and this is a place that international students from Latin America can come to and relate with all of our members. We wanted to be here today to show that to students on campus as well as teach the elementary kids about diversity.” sophomore exercise science major Isabel Barajas said.

Davis was also present at this event, helping direct the elementary students to the different countries exhibits.

“We have several hundred of the local elementary schoolers present today, and many people at each countries station to teach the students about each respective country.” Davis said.

Along with Andersson and Barajas, Sana Al-Baeity, junior biology major, was also excited about talking about her country, Libya.

“ I’m here to teach students about all of the different things that Libya has to offer, such as how much oil we have and that our dominant religion is Islam,” Al-Baeity said. “And the kids really seem to be interested in what all of us have to say.”

Posted by Lauralee Iaquinto on Nov 10 2011. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.