You're ready to start looking for the college of your dreams. So you talk to older friends who've al ready made the college choice. You ask them a bunch of questions about life on campus. You talk about profs, classes and fun stuff to do on the week ends. You flip through brochures and surf the Web to check out a few college sites.
Eventually you start visiting those colleges that rise to the top of your wish list. You eat in the cafeteria. Sleep in the dorm. Sit in on a few classes. Take in some cool activities over a visitation weekend. You think you've absorbed everything you need to know about your dream schools.
But did you ask about trips to Europe? Or Asia? What about South America? Or Africa? Trips you can actually get college credit for? Hey, it really is an option many Christian colleges offer! To give you a feel for what you can learn in these classrooms on another continent, we talked to several students who've studied abroad. Check out their incredible experiences, and then start talking to those good admissions folks about similar opportunities offered on their campuses.
Walk Through the Bible … Literally!
J.R. Briggs, a junior at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, always wanted to go to the Holy Land. "I've wanted to see Israel since I was about 8," he says. "I just figured I'd have to go on a tour." Instead, he had a much more in-depth experience—a whole semester of living and learning in the place that had al-ways piqued his interest. J.R. joined about 120 students from all over the U.S., including some from his own school, at Jerusalem University College. Once there, J.R. lived in a dormitory and took 16 credit hours of classes.
But for J.R., it was the out-of-class activity that made the biggest impression. "Academically, it wasn't a hard semester," he admits, "but it was the semester that taught me the most." As a Christian education and biblical studies major, J.R. found his time in Israel a key to opening up his field of study. After seeing the land and experiencing the culture, he says he sees the Bible in a new light.
The teachers at JUC played a big role in linking the students to the culture and bringing its history to life. J.R. says, "What makes Israel so great is the professors realize the most powerful classroom is outside. They don't want you stuck in the library all day." For example, one of J.R.'s classes called "Physical Settings of the Bible" involved students taking weekend field trips to places with scriptural significance. "We'd travel some place, get out, pull out our textbook and our notes, and the prof would say, 'Tell me which patriarch [or ancient Hebrew leader] traveled this route,'" J.R. explains. "It was awesome."
Of course, J.R. went on a few extracurricular jaunts as well. "The first weekend, I went biking, and I ended up stranded in the desert for two days," he says. That's not his best memory. But he recovered and made it his goal to never spend a weekend in the dorm. He succeeded. Snorkeling in the Red Sea, surfing the Mediterranean and exploring places like Tel Aviv, the Golan Heights and Egypt filled the rest of his weekends.
Can You Speak Swahili?
Unlike J.R., Raymonique Davis didn't have a childhood dream of studying abroad. But the senior psychology major at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, was bitten by the travel bug after hearing a friend rave about the international study experience.
Raymonique decided to study at Kenya's Daystar University for a semester. While there, she lived both on Daystar's campus and with a host family. She also learned about the British system of education, which determines a student's course grade based on one final exam. "That was frustrating sometimes," she said, "because it's such a different system. But I got used to it."
Anyhow, Raymonique didn't spend all of her time worrying about tests. Instead, she focused on getting to know the people of Kenya. "There's a boys' home about 20 minutes from Daystar, and I volunteered there a lot," she says. The street kids from Nairobi and other towns became her new friends. Raymonique helped them with their studies, mostly math and English, and they helped her learn Swahili.
OK, Raymonique admits she didn't quite be come fluent in Swahili, but she learned enough to get by. "I can do greetings and carry on small conversations," she says. While in Kenya, though, Raymonique looked like she could hold her own. "I guess because I'm African-American, the people there didn't always realize I was American. Some times when we were out with groups, the Kenyans would look to me to translate!" Fortunately, the Daystar students usually traveled with a real interpreter, so communication was never a problem. In fact, most of the people Raymonique met already knew English.
The lack of a language barrier was especially helpful in Raymonique's other extracurricular activity: singing. As part of a choir called "Sing Africa," she was able to visit churches all over Kenya. "We traveled around the country and stayed with different families from the churches where we performed," she says. Seeing all those congregations is one of Raymonique's best memories. "The people are very diverse and expressive," she recalls. Sharing with them and joining them in worship made her realize that God is bigger than anything that could keep people apart.
Being taken in by church families also gave Raymonique the chance to enjoy some real Kenyan cooking. "They served us their traditional food, which was very different from the food we had in the school cafeteria."
Do You Know the Way to San Jose?
Speaking of food … Stephanie Price became so accustomed to the cuisine in Costa Rica that she now prefers it. "I make rice and beans all the time," she confesses. "My friends can't believe it, but I miss it!"
Stephanie is a junior at Houghton College in Houghton, New York. Although she's thousands of miles away, she feels a close connection to Central America. The host family she lived with in San Jose, Costa Ri ca, is still "family" to her. She admits that when her study program ended, she wasn't ready to head home. "It's amazing that I went somewhere speaking Spanish like a 3-year-old, and in four months time I was crying because I had to leave," she says.
Because she had taken some Spanish courses in college, and had always wanted to study abroad, the trip to Costa Rica was a good fit. Once there, Stephanie and about 30 other students participating in the program had a week-long orientation followed by three weeks of intensive Spanish. "The program was very hands-on," she says. "We were learning about real life by experiencing it, not by reading about it in a textbook. When we studied political practices, we got to speak with government officials."
The students also learned through their service projects. Stephanie's projects took her out of San Jose and into rural Costa Rica, as well as Nicaragua and Guatemala. Her service work was to spend time with children; she assisted workers in early childhood education by reading stories to kids. "It was really eye-opening," she says. "People live pretty comfortably in Costa Rica, but when I went to Nicaragua, I was shocked. Over half of the population lives on just a dollar a day, and that hit me hard."
Seeing the effects of poverty firsthand was Stephanie's biggest lesson. "That really made me think," she says. "As Americans, we have so much. Now I realize how our way of life affects others." Her time in Costa Rica has, she says, changed her life forever. "I walked away with such an awareness of the world. I work harder, now, at knowing what's going on and learning about problems. And knowing I have a family I really care about across the world just makes the world seem smaller."
The Land of Willy Shakespeare
For Charles Todd, an international education didn't mean major culture shock. He left his American school, Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Oklahoma, for Oxford, England. Because he'd done some globetrotting through out his life, it wasn't too hard for him to adjust to life in the British Isles. However, he says, "I'd never been in an environment like Oxford. There are students from such a broad range of faiths and backgrounds. It was a great opportunity to make friends."
Charles, a junior philosophy major, was always interested in going to Oxford. So when he got a chance to study at the university's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, he took it. He lived with about 20 other Americans in a house 10 minutes from the city center. The environment, he says, was challenging.
"I was never quite as motivated to study as I was that semester," he says. "There, you're working with some of the top scholars and students from around the world. It was hard work." Naturally, Charles took advantage of his time at this prestigious institution. He was involved with the Oxford Philosophical Society, through which he heard lectures on everything from science to church history, and the Oxford Union, which sponsored several debates. "It definitely gave me good preparation for graduate school," he says.
Of course, like the other students, Charles enjoyed time away from the classroom as well. His program of study provided four field trips that supplemented the course work. For example, he says, "When we studied architecture, we would visit buildings to see an example of Gothic style, or a flying buttress." In addition to touring castles and abbeys, Charles saw a production of Shakespeare in Stratford-on-Avon and spent a weekend in Scotland.
He was also on a mission for his family. "They wanted me to go to the Cotswolds and look for a sixteenth-century relative's grave!" he says. He looked but didn't find it.
Perhaps he'll have another chance. He's already returned to Oxford on spring break (he went to visit friends there), and he hopes to spend more time in England. He's glad SNU offered the chance to study abroad and that he was encouraged to do so. "It's something you can't pass up," he says.
So, Get Your Passport Ready!
While going to college is, in itself, a great opportunity to learn more about yourself, your world and your faith, it's sometimes necessary to branch out even more. Leaving the familiarities of American life might be the best way to learn to appreciate them. Not only that, say these students, it could also open your eyes to appreciate even better things, like the people and cultures you wouldn't normally get to know. And no Carnival Cruise is going to let you get this close to the day-to-day existence of people in other countries. Yes, they have a buffet, but studying abroad is still better.
As J.R. says, "College is the best opportunity to study abroad. When we graduate, we can't just pick up and leave for three and a half months. This is worth everything."
So as you begin your college search, don't forget to check out those overseas study opportunities. You might just end up learning something—something you'll never find between the pages of a textbook.
Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Campus Life magazine.
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