Today is the day, the day I leave for London for two weeks. As someone with some anxiety and multiple stomach issues, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous for this plane ride. Packing my carry-on with a gallon bag filled with all kinds of medicines helped a little to remedy my hypochondriac-worries. This is also my first time travelling alone, yet that’s not really on my top list of worries. The “normal” worries never seem to be my priorities.

Fifteen small businesses in Iowa opened their doors to University of Iowa students to find out how they could market their products to Chinese consumers. Tippie College of Business Professors Lon Moeller and Jay Christensen-Szalanski decided to add a bilingual hoop for students to jump through with this semester's online Introduction to Law course. "We were trying to make the course more accessible to (UI's Chinese students) so they could better understand it and then in the process take advantage of the skills that they have and have them work together with the native English-speaking students," Christensen-Szalanski said.

For the past seven summers, the University of Iowa's Between the Lines programs has been bringing high school-age writers from Russia and Arabic-speaking nations to Iowa City for a two-week, summertime residency.This year's program — which is hosted by the International Writing Program — will be offering a special summer session that will include about two dozen 17-to-20-year-old writers from two nations that have had been at odds for for generations: Turkey and Armenia. The international writers will be joined by a smaller cohort of similarly aged writers from the U.S.

My name is Hanley. I am currently studying the 2014-2015 academic year abroad in Madrid, Spain. I decided to study in Spain after having spent a year in Peru. I became fascinated with the Spanish language and the many cultures that surround it. My year in Spain has been one of the greatest experiences in my life, to say the least. Perhaps, one of the biggest revelations one could make while abroad is self-discovery. Regardless of people’s said intentions for going abroad, or even just travelling in general, they subconsciously are not only looking to see new parts of the world, but of themselves as well. People travel to find previously undiscovered parts of their identity.

In a guest opinion column for the Iowa City Press-Citizen, UI graduate student Eli Asikin-Garmager reflects on his two months living in a village in Indonesia where he conducted research on a local language and completed requirements toward his graduate degree in linguistics. The language found on Lombok Island in Eastern Indonesia — called Sasak — is spoken by some 2.5 million people, but relatively little documentation of the language exists.

Kelsey Frisk, a senior at the University of Iowa, lived in Malå from January through July as part of the study abroad program. There, she researched policies and cultural issues affecting the Sámi people. Her research included investigations of herders practicing reindeer husbandry, who she said make up about 10 percent of the Sámi people.

The UI’s “Food for Thought” project—its first ever theme semester—offers a platform for engagement on campus and throughout the state around one of life’s constants…food. Join host Joan Kjaer at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, January 20 at FilmScene in downtown Iowa City as she and her guests discuss the ways in which food affects us as individuals and binds us as members of communities.

On Saturday, Dec. 20, the University of Iowa streamed two special commencement ceremonies featuring commentary in Chinese: the Undergraduate Commencement and the College of Engineering commencement. Watch these videos on our website now.

Living in another country is definitely an experience that plummets you into the unknown. Everything you’re used to is completely turned upside down. It’s a scary, yet freeing feeling that creates independence at a whole new level.

Moving to Africa is a big enough change all on its own, but the day-to-day differences are definitely the ones that are the hardest to get used to. Here are a few differences I have really noticed in my daily life here in South Africa...