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Ahdi Mohammed '13: This past spring, we went abroad to Costa Rica on the Mount Holyoke
and Goucher program on sustainable development.
We had a really amazing time. The professors are definitely life changing. They're really inspirational.
They're so passionate. Learning is fun while you're there.\ \
Cally Guasti '13: A lot of our academics did happen also outside the program with our professors.\
\ Mohammed: The program has a great emphasis
on experiential learning, so we went on field trips around the country. And at this point,
we'd be learning about the history of the banana plantations from the social development
and change professor, and then our tropical ecology professor would come and she'd talk
about the soil that's in the area, and then during this whole process we might be having
a particular conversation with the Spanish professor, in Spanish. So it was just all
about going out there, getting all this different information from all these different perspectives
while you're out there on the spot, on the location, in the factory, in the plantation,
in the fishing port. So, it had a lot to do with being there in the case studies, speaking
to the locals, while having, like, an academician's perspective. There were people from all sorts
of majors\biology, environmental studies, anthropology, sociology ... \
\ Guasti: Geography. It's like a really kind
of all-encompassing program in that sense, because it gets a sense of the culture of
Costa Rica, it gets a sense of the environment, the environmental issues of Costa Rica, and
it also has this kind of tropical ecology aspect of, like, more of a science, natural
science field.\ \
Mohammed: The home stay aspect of the study abroad experience does give you a greater
understanding of what the culture is like. Not only are you exposed to, like, what their
food is like, but also what are the problems that they experience as a family.\
\ Guasti: Going to a place where we had cloud
forests, we visited rain forests, and actually seeing, OK this is what is there, this is
what's at stake, was really helpful to understand the importance of environmental sustainability
and issues in general.