Study aboard

The University will become the academic home for the Semester at Sea Program beginning with the 2006 summer session through a new partnership between U.Va. and the Institute for Shipboard Education.

Semester at Sea is a global comparative study-abroad experience that traces its origins to the earliest days of study abroad in 1963. Each year during both the fall and spring semesters, approximately 670 students from colleges and universities around the country take an around-the-world voyage on the floating campus, the MV Explorer. A shorter trip with slightly fewer students is held for the summer session. Nearly 40,000 students from approximately 1,500 different institutions have studied and traveled to 60 countries through the program.

U.Va. will set the academic tone of the program by appointing an academic dean for each voyage who will create the curriculum, work with the program to define the itinerary and recruit faculty from across the country. Participants will receive U.Va. academic credit, which can then be transferred to the students’ home institutions. Courses on the voyages are offered in 20 academic areas, ranging from anthropology to environmental science to theater arts, and course content is designed to correspond to countries on the itinerary.

Read more at AandS.Virginia.edu/go/SemesterAtSea and semesteratsea.com.