Office of International Education Newsletter – February 2015

Stan and Karen Johnson

OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

Ζώντας χωρίς σύνορα

Meet the OIE Staff- Dr. Lois Johnson Q. What is your position in the OIE? A. Director Q. Where did you grow up?

A. I was a Pastor’s kid born in Wellsville, NY, but growing up I lived in two towns in New York, five towns in Pennsylvania, and I also lived in Ohio and West Virginia. I have lived in Pennsylvania the longest though, the same house for 25 years now.

Q. Where did you go to college?

A. My undergrad was at Geneva College, my masters at Slippery Rock, and my Doctorate at Penn State University. I liked living in Happy Valley the best, and I am an avid PSU football fan.

Q. What are your favorite hobbies/activities?

A. I love the outdoors, gardening, going to the mountains, traveling, listening to music, cooking and attending shows, and musicals.

Q. Do you have any favorite books, movies or music?

A. I like to read anything informative or non-fiction, so that I can learn from it. My favorite types of music are classical music and hymns. And my favorite musical is the Phantom of the Opera; I’ve seen it 4 times—three times in London, once in Toronto.

Q. How many kids do you have?

A. I have 2 children, Mark and Charity. They are both married, and I have three grandchildren, with twins on the way!

Q. How many countries have you traveled to and what is your favorite?

A. I have travelled to 21 different countries. There are great things about different ones, but I’m probably prejudiced to Sweden, where my ancestors are from, and England, where I have visited the most. But I love Central and South America’s beautiful mountains and Italy’s beautiful culture too.

Q. Do you have a favorite vacation spot in the US? A. I like to go to so many places, but if I had to pick a spot, maybe it would be the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee/North Carolina or the Black Hills in South Dakota.

Q. If you were able to study abroad for a semester, where would you go?

A. I would want to go somewhere where I could learn the language, one that I didn’t already know.

I might choose a multi-country semester such as IES Abroad’s France, Spain & Italy trip.

Q. What is your favorite thing to do when traveling?

A. Watching the people; that’s always my favorite thing to do.

Q. What is your number one place that you still want visit?

A. That’s an easy one! Oceania – New Zealand and Australia.

Important Dates and Deadlines

Top 10

February 5 Welcome Back Reception for Fall 2014 Study Abroad Students February 10 Deadline for application for BIP program (South Korea) February 11 Study Abroad Fair 10am-3pm HAL atrium March 15 Deadline for applying to study abroad in summer or fall 2015.

By Meg Van Til

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Please contact the OIE with questions about deadlines and events

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Director: Dr. Lois Johnson Field Director: Dr. Mark Reuber

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Staff Assistant: Mrs. Jennifer Gilliland Student Assistants: Catherine Bacheldor Alex Carsey Jessie Huff Darren Masters Rachel Pullen Colin Renick Jason Skyrm Meg Van Til Rebecca Torre

Reasons to Go Abroad

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Travel: it’s fun! When you’re abroad, there are tons of opportunities to see new parts of the world, be it through simply exploring your new city and the surrounding areas, or checking out other countries.

Studying abroad is great for developing a sense of confidence and independence. When in another country, you are often forced into unfamiliar situations. While, admittedly, these can be uncomfortable and stretching experiences, more often than not you realize you are capable of handling the curve balls which life may throw, and can learn to appreciate and navigate the unknown with ease.

You will regret it if you do not study abroad. Honestly, when was the last time you met someone who spent a semester in another country and wished they hadn’t gone? The number one regret I hear from college graduates is that they didn’t take the chance to study abroad. Don’t be a statistic! Carpe Diem.

It’s an awesome resume booster. In the current global economy, having experiences in other countries is something that employers look for and respect in potential employees.

Studying abroad is a great chance to meet people you wouldn’t otherwise. Not only are you exposed to a new culture, but you make new friends and maybe even gain a second family.

I can almost guarantee it: while abroad, you will learn a lot about yourself.

Living in another country helps you to grow and learn in ways that you could not do at home.

Expand your worldview! Especially here at Grove City College (which many of us fondly refer to as “The Bubble”) we get a very one-sided view on most issues.

Being abroad can help you reevaluate. Believe it or not, not everyone in the world wants to live in America. There are other amazing countries with unique cultures and traditions, and living in a different culture changes the way you see the world.

If you are looking to learn another language, there is no better way to do it than through immersion. Seriously though: try living with a family that doesn’t speak English. You will learn to communicate in their language pretty quickly, and it is pretty awesome to be able to communicate with locals in their native tongue.

It’s a fresh start. Especially if you don’t know anyone in your new city, it is a wonderful opportunity to be authentic and get to know people who have no preconceptions about you.

Surprisingly, it really doesn’t have to cost that much to spend a semester abroad. There are a ton of great programs that cost about the same as a semester here (or in some cases even less).

Featured travel location:

by Alex Carsey In the spring of 2014, I faced the daunting challenge of spending a semester abroad in Chile. Friends had given me some advice, my family had convinced me that it was among the best things I could do for my future, but I really had no idea what to expect. Chile seemed like a random, relatively small country in South America, and I couldn’t have known what sort of adventures could lie ahead. Needless to say, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Upon arriving, I quickly made friends with a number of other students spending the semester abroad at the same school, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez. I had a very enjoyable host family, as did nearly all of my friends, and we were made very comfortable throughout our stay in the beach city of Viña del Mar. The classes I took were relatively easy, mostly because professors there knew that we planned to spend a large portion of our semester traveling, and travel we did.

Traveling in Chile was different than the travel that friends who studied in other countries have described to me.

Instead of visiting ancient cities and historical landmarks, the allure of the destinations we saw was almost entirely based upon natural beauty, much of it unknown. I have had the chance to explore parts of northern, middle and southern Chile, and will describe them in geographic order.

During a five day break in the semester, I traveled with a group of friends to the Atacama Desert up north. The Atacama Desert is commonly known as the driest desert on earth, with many salt flats and surfaces that are comparable to the moon. Because of the aridity and high elevation, San Pedro de Atacama, the town we stayed in, is considered one of the darkest-skied cities in the world, and there are many famous observatories in the region as a result. One night we ventured into the outskirts of the tiny village, and after going about ten meters from the last streetlights in town we looked up, and were completely shocked by the sheer quantity of stars. None of us had ever seen even half that many at any point in our lives, and we were in awe. Hardly a word was spoken for 20 minutes as we tried to comprehend our own insignificance in that moment. The next day we went on tours of the area, and saw areas where some people believe the moon landing was filmed because of the similarity of landscape. Our last day, we rode horses through the area and could see volcanoes scattered along the horizon.

The center of Chile is where the two largest cities in the country are, Santiago and Valparaíso. Santiago, the capital of Chile and third most populous city in Latin America, was massive, and huge white capped mountains could be seen from anywhere in the city. Valparaíso, considered the cultural heart of Chile and Latin America’s version of San Francisco, was a rather intriguing city to walk through. Professional mural art is found all throughout the streets, marketplaces and residencies. The murals became famous because of their open rebellion to General Augusto Pinochet, who was the dictator of the country from 1974 until 1990 and removed the people’s right to free speech and free press. As a result, citizens took to venting their grievances anonymously through mural art. Valparaiso was only a fifteen minute bus ride from where I lived in Viña del Mar, so I had the chance to visit rather often.

Contact the OIE for more Information on the Chile Program!  Same price as a semester at GCC.  Includes airfare and homestay housing.  GCC equivalent courses preapproved.  University located in beach town of Viña del Mar. The area of Chile that I truly fell in love with, however, was the southern part of the country. Traveling to Pucón, a small mountain town near the border of Argentina, my fellow travelers and I spent our days river rafting, rappelling down waterfalls, cliff jumping, visiting hot springs and exploring rainforests, and our nights singing songs around the campfire and meeting travelers from all over the world staying in the same hostel as we were. I loved the area so much that I returned this January for ten days with my father and brothers to go even further south, and explore the region known as Patagonia.

Patagonia is the part of Chile and Argentina in which the Andes Mountains and the Pacific and Atlantic oceans collide to form spectacular landscapes. During my ten days, we were able to see dozens of waterfalls, gigantic glaciers, clear blue lakes formed from melting glaciers, mountains that somehow get larger and larger the further south you travel and massive forests which have never been fully explored by humans. The misty hills and peaks leave you with a feeling of beauty overload, which was accurately compared by my father to consuming too much sugar. Sparsely populated, it is easy to tell that the area is not yet fully explored. There are too many islands and peaks for any one person to explore in a lifetime, and that fact gives you a sense of awe and reverence for the entire region. We saw sea lions, penguins, dolphins, rare frogs, and three meter-wide condors. We rode horses and saw ancient cave paintings.

All in all, I have completely fallen in love with the country, and I encourage you to consider exploring it yourself if you have the opportunity. Grove City College makes studying in Chile extremely easy and relatively affordable, and the Office of International Education is ready to help you work through all the details of designing a trip that can work with your academic schedule.

Faculty Led Travel Course: Galapagos Islands

By Rachel Pullen

During Intersession January 2015, several students went on a faculty led travel course to the Galápagos Islands. Two of these travelers shared some of their experiences with us. This was not your typical SSFT course but a journey filled with incredible sights and unique experiences away from wintery Grove City. Lacey Lobdell pointed out, “I was snorkeling in 80 degree weather rather than shoveling snow and slipping on icy sidewalks. The Galápagos Islands were very warm and sunny.” Lacey and classmate, Patrick Michael, both noted how diverse the island terrain was, sometimes even on the same island. Lacey mentioned how the island of “Floreana is desert like in the low lands, but very wet and lush in the highlands” and Patrick described how the island of Bartolomé from place to place, “looks like…the surface of Mars, then greenery, then again the surface of Mars starts again, very suddenly, almost no transition in between…” Though seeing exotic landscapes, like those in the Galapagos, is always one of the highlights of travel courses, it is still a class.

Yet these students made it clear that studying does not detract from the experience, but rather enriches it.

Students still had assigned reading, but Patrick observed, “[O]ne of the books we read is Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle…so you’re reading that and then you go to those places and see what he saw and…walk in the shoes of people that were there before like Darwin and pirates and all these other people...” Lacey concurred, stating: “to actually see what Darwin saw and follow his footsteps was truly incredible.” Darwin’s writings deal extensively with a diversity of animals and the students were able to see a lot of wildlife including tortoises, lizards, iguanas, birds, and sea lions.

One fun fact that Lacey shared with us is that the only mammal species native to the islands is a small mouse.

She also said her favorite memory of the trip was snorkeling where she “saw many fish, three sharks, and a sea turtle that was close enough to touch.” Patrick recounted one humorous incident in a local town “when a sea lion walked up to… this counter where… this guy was filleting fish and throwing the scraps to a sea lion that was sitting right next to him like…a dog would.” On this trip students got the benefit of quality instruction from Grove City College professors, plus the opportunity to learn in amazing locations. For Patrick it was the zeal of Dr. Graham, who led the course, which convinced him the trip would be a good idea. He explained, “My freshman year in Civ, I had Dr. Graham… it seemed like something that he was really excited about, and I really enjoyed his class and I figured… ‘if this is something that he’s… pretty excited about, it’s probably pretty cool and worth my time.’”

Both Lacey and Patrick concluded that the trip had definitely been worth it. These students returned from the Galápagos with great memories of learning about a new culture, trying ‘ají,’ the local salsa, and exploring the islands.

When we asked our interviewees what they would say to future students considering going on this trip they were emphatic: “You should definitely go. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity that is definitely worth taking. It’s very fun,” said Patrick. Lacey felt the same, saying, “I encourage everyone to take advantage of any travel opportunities that spark their interest; you may not get the chance again.”

Question of the Month What was the most unique landmark you visited while studying abroad?

The Confucian Temple in Shanghai, used for thousands of years for civil examinations and study.

I visited the Three Swords monument in Stavanger, Norway!

- Alaina Marr

- Nathaniel Herzog

Camino de Finisterre, also known as The End of the World in Spain.

- Elizabeth King

The Mourne Wall in the mountains of Northern Ireland.

- Philip Graybill

The Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany and the Barvarian Alps that it’s built upon.

I visited Pompeii while studying abroad. It was really cool to see how perfectly things were preserved after 1000’s of years.

- Karl Egeland & David Netzley

- Elizabeth Parsons

The East Sea (Sea of Japan) and the DMZ (the border between North and South Korea).

- Emily Wolff

Torres Del Paine National Park in Patagonia.

- David Hindman

Featured Provider: API

By Becky Torre

Navigating the study abroad process is something like being blindfolded in a new city: you may stumble and fall, unfamiliar with the buildings, traffic patterns, and certainly not knowing where to turn. A program provider to bright-eyed, cherrycheeked college students eager to explore the world serves as a seeing eye-dog to the visually impaired.

Let’s start at the top, with a definition. Program [proh-gram] provider [pruh-vahy-der]: your personal secretary, travel agent, mama-on-the-ground.

Program providers come in all shapes and sizes, but their essential role is to coordinate your study abroad experience. Within this company then, program managers or site specialists typically work with you through the submission of your application, selection of classes and housing, communication with and tuition payment to the university of choice, and, if you happen to land in the well-beaten streets of Florence, defend you against the occasional irate landlord.

While supply and demand has worked its magic on the study abroad industry, with many providers cropping up over the last few years, some are better than others. Such is the case with Academic Programs International (API), ranked #1 Study Abroad Provider.

The journey begins at API’s beautiful website. Boasting a fluid user-interface and colorful images of kids just like you enjoying their semesters abroad, API does an excellent job of clearly articulating a complicated process. Applying is simple and straightforward and once completed, API takes care of virtually everything else.

Whether securing your passport or a student visa, haggling over a permit to stay, or setting you up in the very best apartments or homestays, API’s staff is friendly, courteous, and, at the end of the day, practically family. Any company can tout their superiority, but API lets their satisfied parents and students do it for them.

What you might not read on the API website is this: customer service and boots on the ground willing to go above and beyond; countless cultural outings and excursions inclusive in the program fee; actual learning coupled with actual fun; and most of all, confidence in knowing every little detail was thought of, even stocking your new place with a few staples before you unlock the door.

When choosing a program provider, it may seem like the options are endless. But consider this: people are what make or break an experience. And if the people at API care enough to know their students by name, you know it’s going to be good.

Interview with Lizi King Granada, Spain

Study Abroad Student Spotlight

Q. What about the culture surprised you? What things about it did you grow to love the most?

A. At first, it surprised me that people don’t generally smile or make eye contact while passing each other on the streets. I loved greeting everyone with a kiss on each cheek, shopping for only a few days at a time, and buying locally-grown foods or locally-made products.

Q. How did your classes compare to the ones you took at Grove City?

A. My classes in Granada were two hours long, two days per week so I actually had Fridays off! The content was fairly similar to what I had learned here, but the manner of teaching was vastly different. In my grammar class we were talking about concepts that I had learned before but the manner in which they were taught and the rationale behind the grammar concept was explained in such a different way! I really appreciated the diversity in education I experienced.

Q. How did your time abroad affect your perspective on the United States?

A. Oh my goodness, so very much of my perspective has changed. I feel stunned and ashamed of the abundance in which we live while others have so little in comparison yet live without want. The granddaughter of my host mom was so proud of her collection of clothing and would always want to talk about it. The day I saw her bedroom is when my perspective changed the most because all of the clothing she owns would only loosely fill the chest of drawers we are given in the dorms. The more astonishing part is that she had more clothing than many of her friends in average-income families.

Q. Did you enjoy living in a Spanish home?

A. I loved it so very much. I loved the slower (though not unproductive) pace of life, I loved the conversations we had over meals, I loved the blunt and honest nature of conversations, and I loved seeing how a true Spanish family does life.

Q. Were there things about Spain and Granada that you found uncomfortable or stretching?

A. At first I was uncomfortable and shocked that beer was less expensive than water. The first few days, my legs were tired and sore from walking so very much…but that became normal in time. It was stretching and concerning for me not to refrigerate foods that would automatically be kept cold in the US but I came to learn that it was always fine, too.

Q. Would you do it again? Would you do anything differently?

A. I would absolutely live in Granada again. In the three months I was there, I spent a lot of time in English classrooms of various levels as a language assistant. I was helping to correct pronunciation and provide colloquial and native information. All of the time spent teaching English took away from my complete immersion in Spanish but I would absolutely do it again because it’s exactly what I feel called to do with my life. The only thing I would change is stay longer to give myself more time developing fluency in Spanish.

International

Dish: Quiche Lorraine Country: France

Recipe

by Darren Masters

Equipment • • • •

A Frying pan A mixing bowl A fork or whisk A 9” pie pan

Ingredients • • • • • • • •

A pie shell 5 eggs 1 ¼ cups cream ½ tsp salt ½ tsp pepper 1 pound bacon 1 medium onion finely chopped 4 oz. Swiss cheese

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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Start off by pre baking the pie shell. You can use a store bought pie shell or, if you have time, make your own. If you decide to make your own, the blog Handle the Heat has an excellent recipe and tutorial.

Fry the bacon until it is crispy. When it has cooled enough to be handled, crumble it and put it in the pie shell.

Toss the chopped onion into the bacon grease and cook for about 3 minutes until it starts to soften. Drain off the grease and add the onions to the bacon.

Using the whisk mix up the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in the mixing bowl. Make sure everything is thoroughly beaten.

Sprinkle the cheese over the onions and bacon and then pour the egg mixture into the pie shell.

Bake the quiche for about 40 minutes, until it has set up.