If you have ever wanted to go out and see the world, now is the time.
UT Martin offers several opportunities for students to be able to travel and study abroad. There are currently at least 10 trips planned for between now and Fall 2023.
UT Martin will be taking trips to Costa Rica, London and Paris, Scandinavia, France and Spain, the Great Plains, the British Isles, Kenya, Guatemala, Germany and Italy.
“There’s nothing more important that you can do between the ages 18 to 22, then to go some place you have never been. And the farther away from where you’ve been, probably the better,” Dr. John Glass, faculty leader for the Spain and France trip, says.
One upcoming trip is to Spain and France, which will start off based in Barcelona and take a deep dive into Spanish and Catalonian culture. The first portion of the trip will span 21 days in the summer from June 4-25. At the end of the Spain trip, students will have the choice to either go home or continue on by making a three day walk on the Camino de Santiago into France.
There is also currently a plan in the works for a trip to Budapest in Summer 2024 that students can keep an eye out for.
One of the most common fears that students have of traveling abroad is money. However, there are several ways that students can obtain funding to be able to travel. Every student has the opportunity to receive $1,000 from the Student Government Association, and students that receive the Chancellor’s Scholarship can also get up to $2,500 towards traveling abroad. Other possible areas that students can look into to see if they can receive funding are from their major’s department or an organization that they are a part of.
“Money ought never to stop somebody from traveling, especially at UT Martin because the school is genuinely behind getting people to see the world and go places that they haven’t been,” Glass says.
Traveling abroad can have various benefits, such as an improved self-confidence and increased self-awareness. It can also help with future career goals in that it would be great for employers to see on a resume or portfolio.
For the professors who take students on these trips, seeing their students’ reactions to experiencing other parts of the world for the first time can be one of the most rewarding parts of their jobs.
Glass says his favorite part of his job is to see his students go on these trips and do things they never thought they could before and recognizing “before even they recognize, the sense of accomplishment and adventure they genuinely feel . . . experiencing something they could have never experienced anywhere else.”
Traveling abroad can also help students learn more about other cultures and people in ways that can only be gained through personal experience.
Joseph Pelren, a senior Geology major who has been on two trips with UT Martin, says that his favorite part of traveling abroad is “having conversations with people from other countries and seeing how they perceive the world.”
“There are many perceptions that are surprisingly similar, and others that are surprisingly different. Trying to dig down and find out why these similarities and differences exist is lots of fun, and you can learn a lot about yourself in the process,” Pelren continued.
A major benefit of traveling abroad is that it can help someone gain a better understanding of themselves because they are seeing the world in ways they never have before.
Dr. Abigail Shelton, Associate Professor of Chemistry, says that studying abroad had a significant impact on who she is today when she decided to push back her graduation and accept an opportunity that was presented to her to work in a chemistry lab in Paris, France.
“It fundamentally shaped how I function as a scientist and how I like to travel and so many parts of me that I almost missed out on,” Shelton says.
If you are interested in a specific trip, there may still be time to get enrolled for it, especially for the ones happening in the fall. Contact the faculty group leader over the trip, which you can find at travel study/study abroad on the UT Martin website, to get more information.
“If it has ever crossed your mind that you might want to travel, don’t let the thought just slide away; because it occurred to you for a reason, so open up that door,” says Glass.
