For UI students planning to travel abroad, the office for study abroad will hold a variety of in-person information sessions the week of April 18, 2016. In addition to the required training online, every student going abroad must sign up to attend at least one of these sessions.

If you would’ve asked me six months ago if I was going to spend a weekend scaling one of the highest mountains in Scotland, I would have looked at you like you were crazy. If you would ask me to do it today, I would jump at the opportunity to go again.

Are you prepared to sell your study abroad experience in a job interview? Learn techniques to tie together your stories and experiences abroad with the skill sets employers are looking for at a hands-on career prep workshop with UI Study Abroad on Monday, March 21, from 6:00-7:30 p.m. in 1117 University Capitol Centre.

For most students at the University of Iowa, winter break is a time to unwind, visit with family and indulge in a well-deserved Netflix binge while curled up with a cup of hot cocoa. But for others like Victor Diaz, it was an opportunity to make a difference – to embark on a journey to Pondicherry, India for a three-week study abroad course, “Serving Children with Disabilities, Empowering Local Women, Assisting Older Adults.” As part of the course, he observed the physical therapy and special education initiatives many non-profit organizations have implemented in order for these otherwise unwelcome individuals to develop academically or vocationally so that they can integrate into society more able-bodied and prepared. Through these interactions and observations, he learned more about the importance of communication - especially cross-culturally and cross linguistically.

Built on East Art Gallery Street in 1996, the 24-hour bookstore is known by many readers as their “spiritual home” and a place in which to soak for an entire day. A bubble bath of 90,000 books stacked in a space of 1400 square meters. There are at least twenty different annotated versions of Journey to the West, one of the four great classical novels of China. A 513-page guide to polyphonic Mandarin characters can be found in an aisle devoted to dictionaries. Copies of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant are tucked away in random nooks. Books with titles like The Story of Art and The Story of Time convey the immense ambition in this place.

I wanted Bowland College, but I got Furness College instead. All students at Lancaster are divided into colleges. Not like “College of Liberal Arts and Sciences” or “College of Nursing”; they’re social colleges, not academic colleges. Think Hogwarts.

I have now lived in Edinburgh for two months, and I recently had a week off of class and had the opportunity to travel around Europe. Now that I have seen a little bit more of the world, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on my identity as an American, specifically a black male American, abroad.

On the way to Houhai, the streets are empty, the crowds are sparse, the city is hollow. The street vendors left a week earlier to villages and families they visit once a year. The office workers have just left, most visit families, some avoid families by visiting other places. The bosses are fishing on an unnamed island. Houhai is an island of ice in an ocean of cement.

As a University of Iowa senior studying political science and psychology, Jake Murphy long has been intrigued by Cuba. The island nation’s political and economic isolation from the United States since the 1960s has made it a sort of “forbidden fruit” for Americans, Murphy said. “So when (President Barack) Obama announced the relationship would be renewed, and they were relaxing some embargoes, I was in shock,” he said. “It was finally happening, and I thought it was so cool.” So cool, in fact, that Murphy wanted to go and experience the country and its culture during this transition, and before America’s influence affects substantial change.

Before jetting off to Ireland, I, equal parts nervous and excited, read loads of articles, books, and travel guides to learn everything I could about the place I would be living for a year. Besides learning about all the places I wanted to visit while in Cork, I was also very interested in knowing more about the accent.

When UI student Heather Barney studied abroad in Havana, Cuba, this January, she expected to expand on her Spanish-speaking abilities, learn more about the country’s history and culture, and investigate the types of medical schools and careers Cuba has to offer to foreigners. What she didn’t anticipate, however, was that she would be one of several students featured in a news story by Telesur, a Venezuelan broadcasting company

I got on a plane to LAX with an overweight suitcase as opposed to a dream in my cardigan.