Students eat dinner on the Oxford Trip
Photo Courtesy of Mike Jones-Kelley
BY: MORGAN KILGER, STAFF WRITER
The study abroad programs at St. Bonaventure University are getting ready to spring into action. This year, students will be traveling to Sorrento, Italy and Oxford, United Kingdom.
The Sorrento program brings the group throughout the entire Italian Peninsula. The program is run by Anna Bulszewicz, a professor in the Jandoli School of Communication at Bonaventure. Bulszewicz enjoys taking students year after year, watching them become enlightened in Italian culture.
“In the formative years, it’s something that could change their lives; it’s an awakening,” Bulszewicz said. “It’s where people travel to become enlightened.”
While in Italy, students learn by living as Italians do. They live in apartments on their own and are hardly in the classroom — maybe once a week, according to Bulszewicz.
Bulszewicz said she enjoys taking students outside the classroom, providing them with a sense of wonder. Instead of learning about Pompeii in a classroom, they are walking around the grounds of Pompeii while learning about the events.
Bulszewicz said she spearheads this program because she loves seeing the students be happy and human.
“I cannot wait to be immersed in Italian culture completely by eating the food and exploring,” Regina Izydorczak, a freshman attending the Sorrento program, said.
The trip is a 5 week summer course, lasting from July 2 through Aug. 6.
Alongside the Sorrento trip, a different group of students is traveling to Oxford, United Kingdom to study at Trinity College and other colleges at Oxford. The program is run by two professors in Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communications, Mike Jones-Kelley and Anne Lee.
The students attending this program will live on Oxford’s campus, eating at the same dining halls, studying in the same libraries, and sleeping in the same dorms as the students that attend Oxford.
“It’s not every summer that you get to study in rooms straight out of Hogwarts,” Jack Kennedy, a freshman attending the Oxford program, said, “Learning to adapt to the Oxford lifestyle will be challenging but rewarding.”
Jones-Kelley enjoys taking the students to watch them gain the idea of “I can do it.” When the students gain that idea, they prove that they can survive in a foreign country on their own.
“I’m mainly excited to see how Americans live different lives than Europeans,” Kennedy said.
This study abroad opportunity will last from June 30. until Aug. 11.
The Oxford program also gives students a new perspective on the world. They spend a whole summer living in a new country — one that’s socially and culturally different from the United States.
“It gives students a broad perspective on the world,” Jones-Kelley said.
kilgermi22@bonaventure.edu
