MARK BEISSINGER: So Global Seminars
is a small group experiential learning course offered
by Princeton, by the Princeton Institute for International
and Regional Studies.
We take a small group of Princeton students
to a location around the world, teach them
a course on a topic in that place,
have them interact with the subjects
that they're learning about in the classroom.
So they go out to sites that they're
learning about in the classroom, maybe
they visit an ancient site or a museum.
They have experts come into the classroom who
tell them about the various aspects of what
they're learning.
These are things that they can't do on the Princeton campus.
So they have this experiential element.
VICTORIA SEYOUM: It was definitely
one of the highlights of my Princeton experience.
We were able to be in class and discuss the Roman ghettos.
And then hours later, we would be
walking through the Roman ghettos, actually,
there is real time.
So I think that sort of learning experience is very unique.
And it's something that I'm really
grateful that I had the opportunity to be a part of.
MAYA WAHRMAN: Well, I think being
able to take a class on a place while you're there
for the time is really invaluable, because even little
cultural interactions that-- especially,
because we were kind of an anthropology based seminar--
that we're learning about.
We're reading about how men and women interact in public, how
people treat their children, and then you go to the market
and you see that.
AVANEESH NARLA: I think the best part of it
was that we were so immersed in the entire experience.
And we had this group of people who
came from a diversity of academic interest.
I studied something else and other people
studied economics and so forth.
All of us shared a passion for a language,
and this emotion really helped us understand language better
and how it plays an important role in each other lives.
GHITA GUESSOUS: As a science major,
I don't get to think about a lot of the philosophical
implications of modern things.
And photography's a very modern technology.
And it was very valuable for me to be
able to think for an extended period of time
about all these themes, about how photography relates
to things like appearances, and death, and life, and light,
and shadows, and all of these dichotomies in everyday life
MARK BEISSINGER: So all of the global seminars
are faculty driven in the sense that we
go to places that the faculty know about,
are experts about where they want to go.
The people that we have teaching these seminars
are some of the world's leading experts
on those particular societies.
ZACH RUCHMAN: The relationship that I developed
with the professor to say served as a mentor for me
throughout my entire Princeton career, and he continues too.
I still see him when I'm in New York.
We grab drinks.
We grab dinner.
It was much easier to develop that relationship
on that seminar when we were all together for six weeks
than it would have been on campus when there
were so many distractions and there were so
many things to do.
And being in one place for six weeks
and just focusing on one subject really
allowed that relationship to develop.
MARK BEISSINGER: What stands out most
are the experiences that students have,
and those are things that they just don't forget.
The ways in which they've connected with society, just
the things that they've seen, the kind of learning that
takes place, they praise that over and over again.
MAYA WAHRMAN: What the Global Seminar does
is you are there specifically for the purpose of being there
and for soaking in that place.
And I would say you should do a Global Seminar.
If you're thinking about it, go to the place
that excites you most, that would maybe
be hardest for you get to.
Try all the foods.
Really try to kind of get in deep, I would say.
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