Study abroad or just travel - students debate

As upperclassmen are completing the application process for fellowships to study abroad, some Yalies have mixed feelings about the prospect of going abroad in unstructured programs.

Geology & Geophysics (G&G) major Matt Jackson,
JE '00, for example, who is pursuing independent study this semester in South America, is suing two Chileans whom he claims tried to poison him. The defendants contend that Jackson was suffering a relapse of the typhoid fever he contracted a month earlier in Bolivia. Currently in Ecuador, Jackson is gathering medical evidence to prove his case.

But stories like Jackson's don't deter many Yalies. Yale organizes few study abroad programs, so students have a wide variety of travel oppportunities available to them. For example, G&G major Deborah Liptzin, SY '01, plans to spend part of next semester at sea in a fellowship sponsored by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. "I'll spend six weeks on an oceanographic research vehicle doing a project, and I'll also be working as part of the ship's crew," Liptzin explained.

"Other geology students I know have gone to New Zealand or worked on the Biosphere in a program sponsored by Columbia," Liptzin added. "If you want to travel, you just have to do a little work to find out what's out there."

As well as having few established travel programs, Yale is notorious for having the most stringent requirements in the Ivy League for transferring course credit among schools. Liptzin, for example, will not receive course credit for her trip.

The programs sponsored by Yale, such as the Light Fellowship and Yale-in-London, generally earn student praise for superior organization. Ariel Pepple,
JE '99, who spent her fall 1997 term with Yale-in-London, said, "I thought Yale did a good job of providing support--the professors were great, and transferring grades was easy."

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