Winter session truly allows students to have the best of both worlds, as students can return home and spend time with family before the winter session term starts. As such, Virginia Tech students are redefining what it means to be a Hibernating Hokie and seeing the world.
Typically, students traveling abroad will leave shortly after the university's winter break begins and spend two to three weeks abroad on a Virginia Tech faculty-led program for course credit.
More than 200 students participated in 17 faculty-led programs travel during the 2019 winter session with passports stamped in 15 different countries, including Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, South Africa, Rwanda, Japan, India, United Arab Emirates, England, Italy, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand.
Virginia Tech students study abroad in South Africa during winter break.
Of the more than 200 Virginia Tech students studying abroad, 17 students spent a portion of winter break learning firsthand about South Africa as part of a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences study abroad course on food security, wildlife, and conservation. Over the course of two weeks, the students journeyed through South African agriculture, history, economics, politics, culture, and society.
“Agriculture and food security are the perfect lenses for the study of South Africa,” said Mark Reiter, associate professor in the School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and Extension specialist at the Eastern Shore Agricultural Research and Extension Center, who was one of two leaders on the trip.
“Faculty and students see the value of the world being their classroom and connecting theoretical concepts with real experiences,” said Michael Herndon, director of university summer and winter sessions.
“Whether it is talking about race and the challenges of re-appropriating farms in the wake of apartheid, or it is examining conservation agricultural practices in an arid country with issues of food inequality, many of the challenges that make South Africa so interesting and dynamic are connected to agriculture. Agriculture is a common thread that unites us all” states Reiter.
The journey around the country created opportunities for introspection and resulted in significant personal growth for each of the participants.
“The experiences we had, from the townships to the views of Table Mountain—and all the other places we visited and people we met—they widened my scope on everything and helped me put things into perspective,” said Lindsey Kyte, a junior majoring in environmental science. “I could tell you that there are beautiful views out there, and there are hardships in the world, but it’s an entirely different thing to go there, experience it, and see it.”
Excerpts from the “Exploring South Africa through agriculture” article by Zeke Barlow in the Spring 2019 edition of Virginia Tech Magazine featured, with permission from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences