By Erin Walker, Guest Writer

Xavier University’s campus may stretch from Cintas Center to The McDonald Memorial Library, but the learning opportunities for its students extend across the globe through studying abroad experiences. 

Xavier hosted a study abroad fair on Sept. 12 from one to four p.m. on the academic mall to give students a chance to explore all the study abroad programs the university has to offer. 

Lauren Dale, marketing MBA student, took the trip to Greece through Xavier’s four-week program during the summer going into her senior year. Not only did Dale get to travel to many different historic sites such as the Parthenon and the Akrotiri, she also made some lifelong friends from many different majors here at Xavier, whom she may not have met before the trip. 

“I think the biggest takeaway would be (gaining) a new perspective on things, (and) having that cultural appreciation…You can read about something, but then to go and experience it, live it, meet the people, it just gives you a whole new perspective on how to do things. I think it fits into our cura personalis (and) it’s like grounding,” Dale said.

For the study abroad fair, Dale had gathered all her scrapbooks of pictures from her own trip, helped make flyers and brought keepsakes that reminded her of Greece. Dale has continued to promote the Greece study abroad experience by running their study abroad Instagram account. 

“I helped out with the social media project two years ago because that’s my career interest,” Dale said. “I’ve just been helping Michelle and Dr. Burns with that since then, helping them do the Instagram and promotional stuff, because I enjoyed the trip, and I enjoy marketing. I was able to create my own class by helping with marketing.”

Across the fair, Dr. Suparna Chatterjee, global history professor, spoke to students about Xavier’s new study abroad opportunity in Morocco. The trip has been in the planning process for over two years as they have programmed what classes to provide and what partnerships to use, Chatterjee said. 

“The study abroad opportunity will consist of a three-week trip during the summer,” Chatterjee said. 

On the trip, students will be provided a variety of course options and will get to see sites such as Marrakesh and Casablanca. Chatterjee, herself, is most looking forward to their stay in the Sahara Desert where students will camp in tents under the stars. 

“I also think along with Europe, we have to give students exposure to Asia, Africa and South America,” Chatterjee said. “There are seven billion people in the world. One billion live in Europe, America. The rest all live in other parts of the world. We have to know their history and what we can learn from them.”

Sophomore communications major Samantha Laffay stopped by the fair to look for opportunities to study abroad in Europe but found the whole experience a lot more informational than expected. 

“I just kind of expected people to be like look at this cool place, come here,” Laffay said. “But people are definitely more organized. They had listed the classes you could take and (provided) just a lot more information than I was expecting.” 

“Our world ends not at our doorstep…So if you’re going to be a participant in the world, if you want to know your own history, you have to know how your own history is engaged with the others. You have to know the other to know yourself,” Chatterjee said.