Goshen College adds new SST options, now on all seven continents
Goshen College officials announced plans today to launch three new Study-Service Term (SST) locations in the 2016-17 school year, providing GC students the opportunity to choose from all seven continents to study abroad.
The new locations are in Antarctica, Australia and the Netherlands, adding to current locations of Peru and Nicaragua in Central and South America, Tanzania and Senegal in Africa, and Cambodia and China in Asia.
“This move really rounds out our collection of SST locations,” said Tom Meyers, director of international education and associate academic dean, as he caressed his passport. “It’s huge bragging rights for me at all of the study abroad directors conventions I go to.”
In Antarctica, students will have the opportunity to live and study at Villa Las Estrellas, a Chilean research station, where students will spend their days among towering and melting icebergs, participating in climate research, but mostly taking selfies with penguins. Groups will travel to Antarctica during the spring semester, thus escaping the harsh Goshen winter.
Students who meet the language koalafications to study abroad in Australia will study the history and culture of the country/continent (which is it?) while learning that even the cuddliest-looking animals can kill you.
In the Netherlands, students will spend the first six weeks of the semester – the study portion – learning to spell the name of their host city, Gasselterboerveenschemond. During the second half of the term, they will serve in the tulip fields.
We hope you enjoyed today’s April Fools Day article. To learn more about the real SST and to follow blogs, visit www.goshen.edu/sst
SST was founded in 1968 before study-abroad programs became widespread, making Goshen College one of the first colleges in the country to require international education to graduate. More than 7,700 students and 230 faculty members have journeyed to 24 different countries as part of SST. The program’s uncommon semester-long combination of cultural education and service-learning remains a core part of the general education program, and has earned citations for excellence from U.S. News & World Report, Peterson’s Study Abroad and Smart Parents Guide to College, the John Templeton Foundation and American Council on Education. The Christian Science Monitor rated Goshen College fifth on their list of “Top Ten Most Globally Minded Colleges.” Approximately 80 percent of GC students study abroad before graduating.
To find out where you should study abroad, take this quiz.