Audra DeRidder Major: Special Education and Elementary Education: Learning Disabilities and Emotional Impairments K-12 Program: Cultural Connections in Senegal Senegal, West Africa was a truly amazing and eye opening experience. Traveling across the world and living in another culture gave me the opportunity to build new connections and gain a better understanding of our world….
Category: Africa
Overcoming Fears: Language Barriers and Cultural Differences
Audra DeRidder Major: Special Education and Elementary Education: Learning Disabilities and Emotional Impairments K-12 Program: Cultural Connections in Senegal For the Senegal trip we are staying with host families for the majority of the time. At first I was very nervous, because I knew there would quite possibly be a language barrier. I was very…
Breaking in My Boots for the Top 5
Madison Hybels Major: Interdisciplinary Health Services Program: Public Health and Healthcare Systems in South Africa Living in America and especially in Kalamazoo with such easy access to two great hospitals, I have never even put a thought into not receiving healthcare if I were to need it. I am looking forward to seeing the different…
Practicing Ubuntu
Madison Hybels Major: Interdisciplinary Health Services Program: Public Health and Healthcare Systems in South Africa Before embarking on my journey to South Africa, I envisioned we would be surrounded by jungle or desert, we would have no access to sanitation, and that the area around us would just be completely wild. Most of these preconceived…
Wiping Away Assumptions: An African Experience
Audra DeRidder Major: Special Education and Elementary Education: Learning Disabilities and Emotional Impairments K-12 Program: Cultural Connections in Senegal My experience with traveling to Dakar, Senegal in West Africa has been a trans-formative one to say the least. Before leaving I had tried to picture what the following three weeks would look like. People would…
Pass the Roosterkoek Please!
Madison Hybels Major: Interdisciplinary Health Sevices Program:Public Health and Healthcare Systems in South Africa One of my favorite things I brought home from my time in South Africa is the concept of a braai. A braai is similar to a barbecue in the states, but with a greater focus on catching up with friends, really…
Chasing The Dream
Ontrell McKenzie Major: Biomedical Sciences University of Capetown In preparation to travel abroad, let me say I had my work cut out for me. The entire experience was an ordeal of immeasurable proportions, but it was the ride of my life. I will not trade the grueling hours of work put into scholarship applications and…
The Awakening: A Testimonial
Chasity Cooper Major: Psychology Intercultural Communication & Ethnography in the Dominican Republic, Spring 2017 Cultural Connections in Senegal: Causes of Globalization and Consequences on Systems, Summer I, 2017 For many students who feel like: “I do not have time to study abroad, I do not want to study abroad for a whole semester, I do…
A Thrilling Experience
Kelsey Gough Speech Pathology and Audiology Major Cultural Connections in Senegal: Causes of Globalization and Consequences on Systems, Summer I 2016 I am thrilled to be sharing my study abroad experience to future WMU Broncos! I am a senior in the speech pathology and audiology program here at WMU. I transferred here beginning fall 2015…
A Step Across The World
Alyssa Lem Nursing Major Public Health and Healthcare Systems in South Africa, summer I 2017 Studying abroad quickly became one of the most savored memories at my time at WMU, so much so, that I decided to study abroad twice. My first trip was to Italy in 2015, one of the greatest experiences seeing art,…
A Truly Humbling Experience
Kylie Adams Criminal Justice and Psychology Double Major University of Cape Town, South Africa, Spring 2017 In March 2017 I left for my semester-long study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to my departure, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had done a fair amount of research to familiarize…
110 Arabian Nights
Morgan McCullough Global & International Studies / Spanish Major, Arabic Minor Non-WMU Program: IES Rabat, Morocco At the beginning of my semester, I wrote 5 questions that I hoped I would be able to answer by the end of the semester. Naturally, nothing went as planned. The streets looked nothing like how I pictured them, and I…
Bronco Bloggers Abroad 