Student Study Abroad Opportunities

• "We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey." John Hope Franklin
• “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” Saint Augustine
• “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” Mary Anne Radmacher 
• “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” Seneca
• "To travel is to take a journey into yourself." Danny Kaye
• "Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially." Tom Freston
• “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” Ibn Battuta
• "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." T.S. Eliot
• “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Neale Donald Walsch
• “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” Clint Borgen
• “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” Wendell Berry
• “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes
• “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” Anais Nin
• “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” Gustave Flaubert
• “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality, and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.” Samuel Johnson

The GC Seminar is an intensive seven day international experience that aims to help students to develop a better understanding of the processes and effects of globalization. Participants learn about the core values inherent in being Global Citizens, and about how to integrate those values into their actions. The goal of the program is to instill the desire, ability, and sense of empowerment that a Global Citizen needs in order to affect positive change in their college campus, as well as in their local and global communities.  The GC Seminar is organized by the Global Citizenship Alliance, which since its founding in 2004 has worked with more than 3,300 students, faculty, and administrators to make Global Citizenship the foundation for knowledge and action in the 21st century. The seminar takes place at the historic Schloss Leopoldskron, a palace (originally built for the Archbishop of Salzburg in 1736) that overlooks the Alps and Hohensalzburg Castle.  Each year the seminar focuses on a particular theme (i.e., international disparities or world conflict), and is conducted using three pedagogical modules:

• Plenary Lectures that explore understanding the Contemporary world, followed by questions and answers and discussions.
• Small Group Work that explore, in depth, a specific topic related to globalization and global citizenship.
• Cultural Exchanges that facilitate interaction with other cultures through cultural activities and off-site visits (to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site outside of Munich, Germany).

West Valley College students admitted to this Study Abroad Program work under the direction of a Faculty Advisor and should expect to participate in a pre-departure orientation and mandatory meetings to discuss required readings and prepare for the seminar. WVC offers a limited number of full scholarships to attend the GC Seminar for Students.

Throughout the conference students debated a number of issues specific to the refugee crisis happening not just from Syria but nations in turmoil around the world. Is the Travel Ban imposed by the Trump administration based on national security? Race? Religion? What are the myths regarding illegal immigration into the U.S.? Students were asked a question, asked to take a stance, and to defend it.

So what’s the point of sending students to Austria to debate issues of race/ethnicity, class, and gender that they no doubt discuss in many classes at West Valley College? The difference is in the location and nationality of the speakers. The conference presenters are mostly European. They provide an “outsider’s” perspective that our students simply are not going to get in an American classroom. When a European scholar in American history gives a presentation on how countries around the world view the United States, that has resonance with students when they are hearing it outside of America.

Dr. Tim Kelly is a Political Science and U.S./California History Instructor at West Valley College. He received a Master’s Degree in United States Studies (Politics and Foreign Policy) at the University of London, and a Ph.D. in History (U.S. Foreign Relations and Asian American History) at UC Irvine. He was a Rotary Scholar to Great Britain and a participant in the White House Internship program in the Office of Political Affairs during the Clinton Administration. Dr. Kelly is a longstanding member of the West Valley College Academic Senate, and serves on numerous committees, including the Study Abroad Program Advisory Council, the AA degree in Cultural and Global Studies, and the Global Citizenship Committee. Whether inside or outside the classroom, he is committed to fostering international understanding and to making the world a better place for all.