Spring 2005 Contents
At the Volcan Poas National Park, Meghan (right) completed her directed-research project on tourism and water conservation. At left is Ben Anderson, a Boston University student.
Students from all over the United States joined Meghan (kneeling) at Cerro de la Muerte—the Mountain of Death—to study the feeding habits of hummingbirds.
Ingemar Hedstrom, a natural-resources management professor from Sweden, spoke to the students about water resources at Los Churros.
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First PersonGlobal Education through the eyes of Meghan Klasic ’06As Dickinson College students, I am sure that you have had the ideas of study abroad, global education and “engaging the world” pounded into you time and time again, ever since day one. Keeping this in mind, I decided to write an article about what a semester abroad is really like. In essence, I want to let you know what the hype is all about. After reading this, you may be better able to make the decision as to whether study abroad is for you. This is my real-life experience with “engaging the world” through the School for Field Studies in Costa Rica program. When I left for Costa Rica, I had only two suitcases for three months of studying, one of which was filled with such crazy items as Tupperware lunchboxes, Nalgene bottles, Ziploc bags, mosquito netting and organic everything. When Sara Parr ’06 and I landed in the San Jose airport, we were greeted by smiling staff members holding up signs, a beat-up red pickup truck, a small bus and 24 unfamiliar faces, all just as jetlagged-looking as our own. We were instructed to load our bags onto the truck and then to get in the bus. A 45-minute drive over bumpy dirt roads, the Pan-American Highway, past coffee farms and an old town landed us at our home for the semester—The University of La Presa. The bus and truck pulled up to a rather “used” building, where we dismounted, formed a chain and passed bag after bag into the common room of our “dorm.” Once everything was unloaded, our director, a native Costa Rican, greeted us and told us to find our rooms, drop off our luggage and return for a quick meeting. When we returned to the common room, there was a table full of fresh-squeezed star-fruit juice, pineapple slices and a bowl of diced watermelon and cantaloupe. As we scrambled to put our names on mugs that would be ours for the remainder of the trip, our director announced that the following morning would be the only time we’d receive a wake-up call and that it would be at 6 a.m. The next three months flew by in a haze. The things we learned, saw, took part in and simply experienced were indescribable. We took turns cooking breakfast at 6 a.m. We slept outside in hammocks under the stars and swam in the pool almost every day. We went on field trips, including several overnights to coffee plants, organic and traditional farms and to the mountains. There, we set up mist nets, held hummingbirds, identified them by species, collected pollen samples from them using scotch tape and painted their toenails. We even went to Nicaragua for a week, collecting bromeliads and orchid bees, visiting trash dumps and volcanoes, and experiencing the night life in open-air clubs. And that was not even half the semester. We put on plays and played bingo with our community; we joined pick-up soccer and basketball games with the children in the area, conducted community interviews on a variety of topics, volunteered in the nearby town and attempted to speak Spanish—which we did rather successfully by the end. As part of our course requirements, we also kept journals, composted, cleaned and gardened, all on a weekly basis. In addition, we split into five different groups in order to complete our directed research projects. Sara and I spent a week at Volcan Poas National Park, interviewing visitors (in both Spanish and English) about their satisfaction with the various park services and infrastructure, as well as assessing the amount of water consumed on a daily basis in comparison to the number of visitors to the park. Once the papers were completed, we presented them first in Spanish to the park rangers and second, at a science symposium, held on campus, in English. We also had some free time during the semester, including our weeklong break in the end of October. During these times, we visited various beaches (both black and white sand); we swam in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans in under three days; we explored old mines that were full of bats; we went over waterfalls of all sizes; we experienced the Caribbean flavor of the east coast, and we packed in all of our food and gear for a three-day hiking expedition into a pristine rainforest. Of course, there also was wildlife everywhere you looked. We saw morpho butterflies, four species of monkeys, scarlet macaws, toucans, parrots, tapirs, coatis, bats, sloths, fur de lances, boa constrictors and about seven different species of lizards and iguanas, including the Jesus Christ lizard, which walks on water. Yes, it was a lot of fun, but it was a lot of hard work and very intense. We had classes six days a week, readings, homework, lab reports, research papers, midterms and finals. We had to get up very early on many of the days, with those “late” days meaning that we were to be up and eating breakfast by 7 a.m. We didn’t have hot water; we washed all of our dishes personally by hand. We did not have Internet access on campus nor fancy accessories like phones, heat, air conditioning or television reception in our dorm. We did, however, use our creativity to rig up a projector-style movie theatre; made ornaments for a small Christmas tree; decorated the dorm walls with paintings and pictures; played tons of games, and we had dances and a sing-along. The question is: Would I, give the chance, do this program again? In a heartbeat. Having spent the semester abroad, I cannot impress enough upon you how highly I recommend global education. As Dickinson students, you should feel honored and proud that you attend a school with one of the highest study-abroad participation rates in the country. College is supposed to prepare you for the real world, but I guarantee nothing can better accomplish this than spending a semester in another country, with all new people, surrounded by a new and different culture. No matter what your major is, I feel extremely confident in telling you that you should take advantage of the study-abroad programs that Dickinson offers. If you do not, I assure you that this is the one aspect of college that you will regret not taking advantage of during your time here. The knowledge I gained over three short months, in and out of the classroom, are invaluable assets that I will carry with me through the rest of my life. |
