EC EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN SUMMER PROGRAMS: New Adventures

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

New Adventures

Having moved a lot growing up, I grew accustomed to the idea of everything being temporary. Your house one day would be someone else’s the next day, and vice versa, friends and family would come and go. Halfway through my 8th grade year when we were living in NJ, my mom left us with my dad for the weekend and bought a house in Maine with money she got in the divorce and moved while I was finishing school. In a weird way, this flipped a switch in my brain. My usual self-conscious and anxious self gained a whole new confidence to try things because I knew that even if I messed up, I would be starting my whole life over in a few weeks so it didn’t really matter.

After I moved, this mentality never really went away, and I am thankful for that.

The day the boats didn’t come, I was reminded how much I value that side of myself. We had the option of staying in the village for the day and relaxing on the beach like the day before or going on another hike to a new beach. Having chosen the latter turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time, resulting in one of the best days I have had since coming to college. We hike through sand and rough to a nearly deserted beach with one restaurant and a thousand year old church and spent the day eating and swimming in one of the prettiest and secluded places I will ever see or be, and it reminded me how important it is to adapt to new situations and opportunities.

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EC Eastern Security Studies Program

In the summer of 2011, as the "Arab Spring" was unfolding and the "Eurozone Crisis" was entering its second year, the Emmanuel College Eastern Mediterranean Security Studies Program was established in Crete, as a way to make the location the classroom. Beyond the grand theoretical, historical and political understanding that can be achieved through reading and classroom discussion and exchange, a more immediate, intimate and truer appreciation of the complexities can only achieved by experiencing the cultures, languages of personal interaction.

Since 2012 students have been able to combine an intensive curricular study, with the experience of immersion and living in a local setting. The geopolitical and geoeconomic forces that have acted in the region for centuries, can be identified in the classroom, but they can only be understood by being there. This year's EC EMSS Program will add a fourth week of study, experience and exploration and will also travel to the islands of Rhodes, and Cyprus. In Rhodes we will be partnering with the Prefecture of Southern Aegean and the Aegean University, while in Cyprus we will be hosted by the University of Nicosia.