Ten photography students and Jon Cox, instructor in art, spent part of the summer traveling and learning in Vietnam, experiencing the culture, geography and history of the country and touching—and being touched by—the lives and stories of the people they met.

It was the University’s first study-abroad program in this southeast Asian nation, and the students captured images of virtually everything they saw. The trip combined an academic study of photojournalism with a variety of service-learning projects in which the students helped build a village well, picked up trash in a public park, assisted a farmer with his harvest, photographed handmade items produced by a group of craftspersons to boost the cooperative’s marketing efforts and volunteered in “Friendship Villages,” where people with disabilities live and work.

“Being able to give them our time and sweat is so much more rewarding than just giving them money,” one student wrote of the service-learning aspect of the program. “We really are making a difference, however small, and we are sharing ourselves with our hosts, opening them up to our world, as well as us to theirs.”

Students earned six credits for the four-week program, each taking a course in either basic or advanced photojournalism and a second course in experiential learning, which included the study of Vietnamese history and economics in addition to the service projects. They traveled extensively throughout the country, sometimes by bicycle or boat, always carrying their camera equipment and often struggling with the tropical conditions.

“It was some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever experienced, but also one of the hardest physical trials ever,” one student wrote. “I have a new respect for the people of this country.”

The University is recognized for its high level of student participation in study abroad programs. Last year, more than 70 programs were offered in 35 countries and all seven continents. Most travel during UD’s five-week Winter Session, although full-semester programs also are offered, many through the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.

In fact, UD is the institution where study abroad originated, with a trip to Paris taken by eight young men in 1923. In its most recent report on U.S. study abroad programs, the Institute of International Education ranked the University No. 1 in participation rates among the nation’s public institutions of higher education.
“Our objective is to make the opportunity to study abroad available and affordable to all UD students,” Provost Dan Rich says.

To learn more about study abroad at the University, visit [http://international.udel.edu/].