Yamada International House

Summer Experiences

By Julia van Wagenen
Communications Assistant, Center for International Studies

This summer was an exciting time for many International Studies Majors, with students heading to all corners of the globe. Through OU’s study abroad program, International Studies Majors studied AIDS in Botswana, Chinese language and culture in Beijing, public health and tropical disease in Ecuador, and African culture through art in Ghana. Dr. Drew McDaniel, interim director of International Studies, believes studying abroad should be part of everyone’s university experience and is pleased that so many students are traveling abroad.

“Stepping outside of your own culture is a transformative experience. At times is can be uncomfortable, but it produces intellectual growth that can hardly be obtained any other way,” he said.

Three graduate students who experienced this transformation were Akibu Olaekan Hassan, who served as interns for two public radio stations in Cape Town, South Africa; Mike Elliott, who researched the sugar cane industry in Nicaragua; and Julia Nogueira, who worked on a film project on chagas, a tropical disease, in Ecuador.

While their summer experiences were very different, all were highly valuable and even life changing.

Akibu Olalekan Hassan, a graduate student from Nigeria majoring in Communication and Development, spent six weeks in Cape Town while interning with Bush Radio. Hassan, who hopes to set up a community radio station in his home country of Nigeria after graduation, found his experiences working for Bush Radio very helpful in moving him toward this goal.
The Bush Radio station caters to the underprivileged, concentrating on issues pertaining to health, education, and employment. While working for the station, Hassan contributed to the station’s social commitment.

For one project, he wrote and produced a program on the Cape Town Refugee Center. He interviewed the center’s director, and discovered that refugees are challenged with unemployment, homelessness, and health problems. Another significant problem for the refuges, according to Hassan, is xenophobia, and he helped produce a public service announcement on xenophobia for Bush Radio.

In addition, Hassan worked with children on Kidocracy, a weekly radio program for children, run by children. Hassan acted as a mentor to the children.

In addition to his internship projects, Hassan said he learned a lot about other cultures while he lived in a lodge with students from around the world. For Hassan, “traveling is education,” giving you something, you cannot get any other way. Hassan will surely gain more great experiences while in Nicaragua this winter learning about trade policies and culture while on a two-week trip with United Campus Ministry.

Mike Elliott, a graduate student majoring in Latin American Studies with a specialization in gender and development, spent nine weeks in Nicaragua this summer studying the sugar-cane industry. Elliott decided to take on the project after volunteering for the Peace Corps in Nicaragua where he worked in two rural communities. Small-scale farming was the prominent occupation in one, but a large-scale sugar-cane mill was the main occupation in the other. Elliott wondered why the two communities were so different, and made this the basis of his master’s thesis.

With a student enhancement grant, Elliot returned to Nicaragua to examine the communities and the sugar cane mill. In the end, Elliot interviewed 38 families, or around 300 to 400 people, an experience which he said allowed him to step back and look at the U.S. from a new perspective.
After leaning about the sugar industry, he now purchases organic cane sugar when he can, saying that his experience gave him “a more holistic view of my own consumption.” More importantly, revisiting Nicaragua as an academic solidified that he wants to work with Latinos and with Latin America after he graduates. Elliott said he is grateful for his chance to go back to Nicaragua and recommends that others travel abroad, too.

Julia Nogueira also traveled to Latin America this summer. Nogueira, a second-year graduate student from Brazil, went to Ecuador with Dr. Mario Grijalva, an OU professor who annually takes students to Ecuador to educate, treat, and cure those affected with chagas.

Nogueira, who is majoring in Latin American Studies and Film, spent a month in Ecuador working on broadcast public service announcements, an educational video for schools, and a video to alert American students on how they can get involved. The project allowed Nogueira, who majored in journalism as an undergraduate, to combine her interests and experience in journalism, Latin American studies, and film. She said it was “good for me to see that I have the chance to help.” In the future, Noqueira wants to continue to “use communication to improve human life.”
McDaniel said he believes that studying abroad is “one of the most powerful experiences one can have at a university.”

McDaniel says his first experience abroad “provided me with a restlessness,” and since then, he is “always planning my next trip overseas.”

This year’s travel plans will lead him to Malaysia, Mauritius, and Thailand, and next year, McDaniel will go to South Africa and Mongolia.