By: Katie Sanders, Staff Writer
The beginning of a new semester at Wofford means saying goodbye to our friends who are studying abroad this semester but welcoming back those we missed last semester. While we’re enjoying college football, Greek recruitment, homecoming and the transition into cooler weather, we may be questioning why anyone would want to miss out on a semester at Wofford. Three study abroad alumni, each with a unique abroad experience, reveal what all the hype is about.
Mason Cantey, a senior Spanish and religion double major, spent his spring semester in Nicaragua studying youth culture, literacy and media. In Mason’s words, he studied: “the social movements the youth in Latin America are getting behind.”While based out of Managua, the nation’s capital, his program also traveled to Cuba for a brief period. In addition, Cantey spent the last month of his term doing an independent study project about San Juan de Oriente, an artisan village inhabited mainly by ceramicists.
While he missed his friends and speaking in English, the bucket showers and months without air conditioning awoke him to the reality of the rest of the world.
“The most important lesson I learned was to consider other cultures’ situations. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, so it definitely humbled me,” says Cantey.
Now that he’s back, he misses the fresh fruit and his host mom. “She was an 87-year-old woman with a lot of sass. She had a lime tree in her yard and made fresh limeade every day.”
Elizabeth Berwaldt, senior biology major with a concentration in neuroscience, also feels that her experience was enlightening to the realities of the world. She studied the health care system in India, South Africa and Brazil. She lived in each of these countries for a time to see the health care systems in action, both in rural and urban areas.
She reflects on her takeaway.
“I’ve gotten this life changing opportunity, but what am I going to do with that knowledge? Am I going to leave my life just as it was before, or am I going to do stuff to change the world?”
Berwaldt describes the most pressing struggle of her semester as the transition between foods in each country. As far as missing home, she missed the autonomy of controlling her own diet. As far as missing her semester abroad now that she’s back, she misses it all.
“I miss being in a group of 30 people, and only having each other. I miss having that group of people who understood what each other were going through. I also miss everyday being an adventure. Everything was so hectic, but it was so fun and exciting.”
A hectic, yet exciting adventure is exactly how senior Matthew Yochum would also describe his semester in Istanbul, Turkey. While there to make efforts towards his philosophy and religion majors, Yochum also took a yoga class, enjoyed European soccer and attended Turkey’s equivalent of “The Tonight Show” when his close friend made it on national television.
City life was claustrophobic for him at times. While he missed seeing grass every once in a while, he saw the stretching of his comfort zone to accommodate a new place as one of the main points of studying abroad.
“One of the reasons I went to Istanbul is because not a lot of Wofford students have ever gone. I went there because it was new and exciting. I want to encourage more Wofford students to break that barrier.”
Yochum says he learned that the world could be big and small simultaneously. He also learned to overcome the stereotypes of Muslim-majority countries.
“Here (in the U.S.), there are so many stereotypes, but having been in Jordan and in Turkey, I can tell you it’s nothing like what they say,” says Yochum.
He describes the hospitality he encountered from Muslim people as one that would “put southern hospitality to shame.”
So while life at Wofford rolls right along through the events of fall semester, there are students like these three all over the world who will come back in the spring with new direction, funny stories and a whole new outlook on the world.