Study Abroad May 20

May 20, 2014.  Panel of bronze doors leading into the Cathedral in Pisa.  The doors were made in the workshop of Giambologna to replace the original bronze doors by Bonnano Pisano that were destroyed by fire in 1595.  I chose this panel because it is a scene that I have rarely seen depicted with what appears to be Christ expelling Lucifer from heaven.

Well, the scavenger hunt didn’t go well and that was something I designed.  I know that students said that they wanted it, but I thought that it would be a good way to make sure that they saw little things.  How do you make a person stop and appreciate a piece of art?  How do you make someone young and energetic take time to soak in the atmosphere of a place?  I remember when I was younger and on foreign studies, I didn’t pay attention to the actual information that was being imparted by my professors, but I did soak up the culture and the joy of being outside of my own world.  I didn’t look for McDonalds or feel home sick in my foreign studies, but I did feel like I still learned stuff even though it was probably not what my professors’ wanted me to learn.

May 20, 2014.  Fresco by Pietro di Puccio, 1390 in the Campo Santo of Pisa depicting God at the top of the circles of heaven with the zodiac present to delineate between earthly and heavenly, angels and levels of angels depicted radiating out.   The innermost circle is earth, air, fire, water and then you move outward to more heavenly realms.  While you often see the levels of hell and the damned being tortured, it is more rare to see the circles that represent heaven.

  Does the experience make less of an impact on a person if they are not getting out of it what we wanted them to learn?  Is it possible to not meet course objectives, but meet course outcomes?  I feel like the course objectives are very particular things that the professors want you to have learned and be able to regurgitate, but the outcomes are a broader sense of learning that can come from being on a study abroad.  I think some of the things that you absorbed on the trip are not even apparent until you are back on land that you are familiar with.  I think that everyone on this trip will go back and look at their pictures (hopefully some of them from the abdominal scavenger hunt) which will allow them to realize how huge the trip was in shaping them and opening their world. 

May 20, 2014.  Tomb of Ottaviano Fabrizio in the Camposanto of Pisa.  The reclining woman is supposed to resemble science.  Fabrizio was a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer.  I included this work because it is an indication of the idea of a career being a seductress that will lure you to your work.

I know that my foreign study trips shaped my ability and confidence in traveling in foreign countries.  I know that they set a fire in me to learn more about places and people different from my home.   I can only hope that all of the other students on this trip have this epiphany.