Sarah Seguin ‘22 was lost and loving every minute of it. She was studying in Munich in 2019. Going in,she knew she would be walking a lot. She would have to familiarize herself with train schedules. And, she would have to trust the people around her.

“Putting myself in that situation made me grow as a person,” she says.“It made me more independent. I didn’t really have access to cellular data. I had to learn to understand my surroundings, be confident when someone started speaking fast German. It made me laugh at myself to hear how bad my German was compared to native speakers, but those conversations also helped me grow in my language skills.”

Sarah is one of 3,700 students who’ve studied abroad since the College established its international programs in the early 1970s. Guilfordians and their sense of discovery have ventured to 47 countries over the years. Japan, Ghana and Germany are among the destinations slated for 2023.

During a series of semester-long and three-week programs students will engage in medical shadowing in Spain, learn about childhood in Mexico and experience the spectacle that is Oktoberfest in Bavaria.

“Traveling makes learning more meaningful,” says Eric Mortensen the John A. Von Weissenfluh Professor of Religious Studies, who has led programs in Asia. “Being on the ground in a marketplace in coastal Myanmar is infinitely different from sitting inside the four walls of a classroom. The material becomes less theoretical. The subtleties of cultural experience make people want to know more, and make them understand what they’re learning in far more nuanced and lasting ways.”

Munich has traditionally been the most popular destination for Guilford students. The semester-long program, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year, couples students with host families, and offers classes on German art, history and politics.

German Professor Dave Limburg says students pick up more of the language when living with families. “They’re definitely able to have more of an appreciation for how people live, their customs, their traditions,” says David, who has been taking part in the Munich program since 1996.

The Brunnenburg program, centered on a 13th-century castle in the Italian Alps, has another popular draw. Kathleen Herbst ‘19 met Mary DeRachewiltz, the daughter of poet Ezra Pound at Brunnenburg (which hosts the Ezra Pound Center for Literature), while studying there in 2017.

“She’d always have four o’clock tea time, and we would talk about poetry,” says Kathleen. “And it would rarely be about her father’s poetry.”

Kathleen says that Mary, through connections with her father, knew e.e. cummings, and Marianne Moore. “We would talk about them,” Kathleen recalls. “At one point, I was sitting in this yellow chair, and (Mary) mentioned, ‘Oh, that’s the (poet William) Yeats’ chair.’ ”

Whenever Eric takes a group of students abroad, he hopes they walk away with an understanding that “difference is a good thing.”

“Studying abroad really helps students open their minds to the possibility that the way they live and think are not the singular ways of being,” he says. “The affirmation and celebration of cultural differences is a way to a more beautiful world. And friendship and respect internationally
are the pathways to a more harmonious world.”

College students who study abroad have improved academic performance upon returning to their home campus, according to several national studies. Your gift to Guilford can help grow the College’s Study Abroad program for all Guilford students. To give, go here and under the bar labeled ‘Choose your area of support’, click “Study Abroad Program.”