Diving Into Your Studies: A Semester at Sea

by Michele Bigley

Glassy robin's-egg-blue seas. Stopping lectures to watch dolphins fly over portside wakes. Bulleting through foreign countries, studying the world as you pass through it, owning the patent on sea legs. Deep bronzed skin, sun-streaked hair and bikinis that seem to be painted on. Flying fishes leading the way home. Whales spouting hellos. The sticky smell of salt floating in the misty air. Passing through weather systems, being rocked to sleep. This and more is a semester on the sea, a wonderful alternative to the traditional study abroad experience where you sail through classes using the world as your teacher.

Anyone that has spent a good amount of time on an ocean owns a sort of jaded sensibility. Fortunately, this experience is readily available to all as long as you are open to the enterprise and ready to fight the fear. It's an experience filled with courage, adventure, a lust for life, confidence and power. The eyes of sea-goers sparkle, glimmering with all the exploding sunsets they have witnessed. For a semester, you can make these sparkles yours.

Because most traditional education takes place in the classroom, when you board a vessel of learning, you immediately dislodge yourself from any prior knowledge and begin to learn in a new way. You begin to learn experientially-by doing, seeing, tasting, touching and breathing. You leave only a wake as your trail and look forward to the glorious sunset that will greet you each evening.

So which program is right for you? Well, the truth is, only you can decide which (if any) at-sea option suits you. First though, you should note the cons of studying at sea. The first and worst by anyone's book is seasickness. It's preventable, thankfully. But it's also very entertaining as you set sail and watch your fellow passengers ping-pong off the boat walls. And then there is the terrible mail system that escorts any boat. Not to mention the lonely days in the middle of nowhere, when the idea of land seems so very far away.Also, there are hurricanes, no-smoking rules, sunburns and being stuck with the same people for months on end.

Vessels of Knowledge
There are various opportunities for the student who wishes to study on the sea rather than in the classroom. Read closely, these programs have similar names but are very different from one another. Here are three major programs:

Semester at Sea
You know it from "Road Rules", which dubbed it the "journey of a lifetime." And for some people, it is. However, I heard one professor call it World Travel 101, and that description fits like a favorite pair of Levi's. Semester at Sea is perfect for the college student who wants to sample several countries rather than just one. It offers you the world-in just one quarter.

You spend 100 days on the mammoth SS Universe Explorer, loaded with a salt-water pool, a bar, basketball and volleyball courts, weight room, piano bar, music room, two cafeterias and many classrooms. Traveling around the globe on a floating university with 600 other college students is like a giant slumber party. Taking a variety of college classes taught by professors from around the world and lying in the sun while out at sea. You are hardly at a loss for things to do.

You sail from port to port around the circumference of the Earth, sometimes going as long as a week at sea without seeing land. The longest at-sea time comes in the final 13 days, dubbed the "Long Haul." During your sail-time, foreign students and faculty board the ship before you reach the next port, offering fascinating information about history, politics, nightlife and sociology of each country you visit. Before you're let off the ship into a new land, briefings are given on the country, often by diplomats. Your time is short in each country as you bullet through 10 nations for five days each, including Cuba, India, Vietnam, Japan and six others depending on the season. You have a little time for a lot of sights.

According to Paul Watson of Semester at Sea, "global comparative studies are just as valuable to college students as immersion programs." But those yearning to learn a new language or immerse themselves completely into one culture should avoid from this type of school. This costly program is excellent for students who want to compare and contrast countries as well as oceans, sunsets, cultures, languages, economics and nightlife.

Some people call this program "Party at Sea" and rightly so. The bar opens nightly for three hours and rages with drunken students downing Budweiser. There's also the plethora of events scheduled by the staff. At times, the trip feels like summer camp at sea. But everything is what you make of it. There are some students that do not go around the globe to party. Instead, they go to have an experience of a lifetime.

Semester Costs: Between $13,650 and $15,550 includes room, board, tuition, and passage fare. (Does not include in-country expenses, although you are free to sleep on the ship and eat all your starchy meals onboard.) Financial Aid and work grants are available Up to 18 transferable credits per semester through the University of Pittsburgh.

Sea-mester
The young Sea-mester program is an 80-day experiential learning voyage with 10-15 other students, taking place on a 52-foot boat. Sailing from the British Virgin Islands to Grenada, you stop at 13 different islands to explore, hike, watch baseball, help rebuild homes damage by hurricanes and rest in the sun. All this is training for the five-day at-sea journey home. The students ultimately learn to sail the boat, cook, wash the dishes, clean the boat and basically run the ship. Instructors say that if "they are doing their job right, then they are doing nothing because the students have it all covered."

Aboard the boat, students are enrolled in four classes: Oceanography, Speech Communication, Basic Seamanship and Student Leadership.

"By showing students the ropes, (we) give young people the skills of handling a vessel as well as responsibility for their lives," says James Stoll, the founder of Sea-mester.

Kate Hunter, a student who attended the program in fall, 1999, says she gained more confidence from the experience and now she "doesn't think twice about doing anything anymore. It is a big awakening." Describing the conditions of living on a small boat with 10 people for 80 days, she said, "The rooms are so small, like a hole. But it is like the real world. By the middle (of the program), you start to get real, you become family and stop being polite and start screaming." There are no days off. If you don't drive, then the boat can crash. If you don't cook, then you go hungry. If you panic, you could die.
Sea-mester
(941) 924-6789
www.seamester.com
seamester@msn.com

Semester Costs:
The 80-day voyage costs run between $11,250 and $11,750. This includes group excursions, food, room, scuba equipment, sailing and scuba certification, and learning materials. (Does not include certain credit costs applied by Florida State Community College.) The Mini-mester (35-days) costs $5,980.

S.E.A.
For those of you who are scientifically inclined, there is the Sea Education Association (S.E.A.). This program lasts for 12 weeks. The first half is spent in Woods Hole, Mass., where the students study in-depth oceanography. Then for the final six weeks, the 50 or so students board a 125-foot schooner and set sail for the Caribbean. Aboard the steel boat they conduct research on the water and plant life, study marine ecology and drag for plankton.

By far the most academic of the at-sea programs, this voyage is not suited for people who just want to party at sea. With about 50 kids aboard the boat, they perform more tests than actual navigation. Stopping at a few islands here and there, from the Atlantic to the Caribbean, the students are given free time whenever they are not in classes or conducting research. The students often use their spare time for sunbathing, guitar playing, pointing out islands and even taking solitary trips to isolated beaches.

"These programs are a great chance for people like myself, who would never be exposed to this world," says Marina Johnson, who took the voyage in 1996. "The SEA program was great, well-rounded. It was a very full experience with hard work, personal challenges and a very loving community of dedicated educators. It was the scariest thing I have ever done, but by pushing myself through that fear, I grew immeasurably."

Different from the Sea-mester program, the students don't have the sense of manning the boats themselves. Instead their trip is about the information gathered, the research done, and the hands-on learning gained by seeing and touching the objects you study in the open sea. Of course after it is all over, you will get to say that you got 17 credits from Boston University for sailing from the Atlantic to the Caribbean, sleeping in a "disgusting bunk" and becoming the strong person that you never thought imaginable.

Distant Shores, Close Encounters: An Introduction to Studying Abroad