Go Global Experience
Iceland, August – December 2018
How did the experience transform your learning?
Through this experience I learned a lot about myself and how I like to learn. In first and second year I didn’t have much passion for courses that weren’t directly related to my career in Urban Planning, but when I went to Iceland, I really enjoyed learning about their culture and gained a passion for learning about topics outside of my discipline.
One unique thing that really helped me engage in courses outside of my discipline was taking field trips every week to local museums, historic landmarks and other cultural areas to enhance the learning in my cultural studies and history courses.
I spend a lot of time doing self-reflection with my journal while I was in Iceland, especially since it gets dark early in November! Journaling really helped organize my academic and social life effectively.
What did you learn that you weren’t expecting to?
I learned to appreciate smaller things. I had a lot of roommates that were from different countries and there were some cultural differences and language barriers, but we bonded over the small things – would go to the beach together and look up at the Northern Lights at night. It was a really beautiful way for us to bond even though we couldn’t always communicate with each other at home.
The experience has also helped me learn to take advantage of opportunities where I can and that has helped me get involved more around campus including attending student leadership conferences and even getting a couple of jobs on campus.
How did you learn about the opportunity?
In my first year, one of my teammates on the Rugby team told me about her semester abroad in Iceland. It sounded very cool and I wanted to do it! I didn’t know if I wanted to go to Iceland at that point, but the opportunity to study abroad was something I definitely did not want to pass up. I looked into it on the Go Global website and started planning my classes around a semester abroad right away!
Learn more about Go Global.