Student Testimonials
For a study-abroad location, you might think that Cyprus is quite an unusual choice. After all, who goes to Cyprus? Not many people even know where it is: my mother tried to send me a package to Cyprus, but the lady at the FedEx store had never even heard of the place!
When I entered MIT in the fall of 2003, I did not have many plans or goals formed for the future, except one: I wanted to study abroad. I needed to study abroad. I was determined, and nothing was going to stop me. Two years later, I was three weeks from the end of fall term during my junior year, and I knew that if I didn't’t study abroad that spring, my mind might explode. So, I applied and was accepted to the Global Learning Semester Program in Cyprus.
I arrived in Cyprus in January, where the weather was cold and windy and remarkably reminiscent of a Bostonian April. The other students in my program were from all over the United States, with diverse backgrounds and experiences. My classes, designed for the intensive European Studies program, encompassed art, history, geopolitics, culture, and current affairs in Europe, which was a major departure from my Mechanical Engineering studies back home. The program included an organized group travel all over Cyprus and to eleven other countries throughout continental Europe. The semester passed by quickly; the spring ripened into a beautiful Mediterranean-style summer, and our travels showed us the very artworks and European institutions we had been studying in class. I explored the Coliseum at dawn, walked the grounds of the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau, navigated the Parisian metro by myself, and enjoyed Prague.
As the Knights Templar and the Ottoman rulers well knew, one of the major benefits of Cyprus is its strategic value as an embarkation point to other destinations. I took full advantage of this by traveling to Egypt one weekend, to Poland for spring break, and throughout the Balkans once the program had finished. When not traveling, my free time in Cyprus included catching films at a nonprofit educational center, and occasionally hanging out with a bunch of American expats who live as traveling street performers. Once the weather warmed up, it was an hour bus ride away from some beautiful Mediterranean beaches, and mountains to hike in were never far away.
However, I found Cyprus was far from being another Paradise Island. There is virtually no public transportation, so getting around can be a pain. The men are rather chauvinist, and unfortunately American women don’t have the most respectable reputation everywhere in the world (Thank you, Hollywood!). While it seemed that the locals were cold and reserved, I learned that they were actually just shy, having grown up in a close-knit village-style society. I eventually learned that they are in fact truly curious about other cultures.
Overall, I was very satisfied with my study-abroad experience. The intensive European Studies program gave
me a knowledge of the world that I had been severely lacking. The travel opportunities took me, on a student budget, to locations I might never have the opportunity to visit otherwise. My semester abroad opened my eyes to the world, no mean feat after the self-imposed exile that an MIT engineering education seems to require. One might think that I set myself back a semester by not completing any classes required for my major, but this semester gave me a breath of fresh air and a new perspective that I think will help me enter into the fall semester revitalized and invigorated.
Studying abroad is, I think, one of the best and most influential experiences a student can have. It isn't easy. It is all about learning to live outside your comfort zone. Studying abroad will teach you to grow in ways that you never can by forever living in the familiar. In an ideal world, I think that all students should study abroad, and I definitely think that more MIT students need to. So good luck, and GET OUT THERE!
