Fresh from my trip to Italy, I would have to say Rome and Florence are shortly behind Barcelona on the list of my favorite cities visited during study abroad. Florence was just jaw-dropping. It was that type of antique beauty that you imagine when you think about Italy. From the Duomo to the Ponte Vecchio, it seemed like there was something beautiful on every corner. Not to...
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Study Abroad
On December 1, 2011, My Entire Life Went for a Spin!
On the first of December, many high-achieving, low-income students around the nation were notified that they had received the QuestBridge National College Match--a free college and scholarship application process that helps outstanding low-income high school seniors gain admission and full four-year scholarships to the nation's most selective colleges. This year, there wer...
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Field Trips and Farms
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been on two very interesting class field trips -- one to a Christian Miao minority village and one to an organic farm.
As part of my Ethnic Minorities in Yunnan class, we visited an isolated Miao (Hmong, in English) village about 3 hours outside of Kunming. Besides honoring Miao traditions, this village was unique in that almost everyone p...
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Thanksgiving in China: At Home Away from Home
I'm not someone who is particularly into Thanksgiving. At the risk of sounding like a party-pooping Grinch, I have to admit I've never been too crazy about the holiday some people claim as their favorite day of the year. I like the idea of a day set aside to give thanks, I love having a break, and it's pretty great to spend an entire day eating. But the American tradition o...
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Is This Real Life?
I am pretty much done with my traveling in Spain and I thought would share some of my experiences from this beautiful country. The first place my program went to was Zamora and Toro. They are key places for wine making in Spain. We went to this really cool bodega (wine cellar) and found out how wine is fermented. The darker wines are fermented and stored for a longer period tha...
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Classes in Kunming
Browsing through Pomona's newly released Spring 2015 course schedule, I couldn't help but think about just how different my classes here in Kunming are from classes at home. The most obvious difference is that all of my classes are conducted in Chinese. Adhering to the language pledge, we speak no English at all. Another major difference is size. While my classes at Pomona can ...
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An Added Richness We Cannot Afford to Overlook
I still remember the day in mid-March when we were sitting down to discuss what Study Abroad required of us and what we should expect from being away. One of the statements that will forever remain in my thoughts is the following:
"Don't expect Pomona College abroad--if you want Pomona College, then stay here."
This was stated by Rhoda, the director of the Study Abroad Of...
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Fall Break: Lost in Rural China Edition
After a long week of midterms, a few friends and I set off for a week of terrifically underplanned backpacking adventures. We had not yet booked hostels or figured out any transportation, but with packed backpacks, the exhilaration of having finished midterms, and overconfidence in our Chinese abilities, we boarded a 9-hour overnight train for Lijiang.
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Why Study Abroad?
A pretty large number of my Pomona friends are studying abroad this semester, and if not this semester, they plan to go abroad in the spring. We are in places as far-flung as Cameroon, Germany, Australia, Hungary, China, Greece -- the list goes on. We all made the decision to forfeit a semester at Pomona, giving up loads of interesting classes, on-campus involvement and respons...
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¡Saludos! from Salamanca!
Hello everyone! My name is Ashley Land. I am a junior (cannot believe that) and media studies major at Pomona. I am from the windy city of Chicago, and as some of you may know, I am not at Pomona this semester but in the beautiful city of Salamanca in Spain. Choosing to study abroad was a very difficult decision for me. I thought it was going to be a horrible experience and...
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