The University's Education Abroad Program has sought to expand student awareness of the global community, sending about 450 students each year to every corner of the globe to study and learn about other cultures.

Nyesha Taliaferro (senior-religious studies) wanted to go to Africa to see how its culture had influenced her own. Through the Education Abroad Program, Taliaferro went to Nairobi, Kenya. She said she became so much a part of the culture she was asked to be a bridesmaid in a Kenyan wedding.

"In general, the people were the warmest I ever met," she said, remembering a specific family she once met while hiking. "(They) took me in and gave me tea. They asked what I was studying and who I had come to the country with."

"It's a little less like that in the city," she continued. "They don't talk to you until they get to know you."

Stacy Arnott (senior-international political science) visited Japan and said the people were friendly and helpful.

"Some of them are afraid of Americans, though; they don't know what you're motives are," she said.

She remembered a man who appeared drunk came up to her and some friends in the city. "He told us to go back to America; that we were corrupting them. We came up against that sometimes," she said.

But, in general, Arnott said, the Japanese see Americans as bright and very happy. She said Japanese students come here to study and find it more individualistic and diverse. "When they go back to Japan, they're unhappy because they feel stifled."

Some students did run up against problems however. Deborah Heicklen (senior-math) felt the support system in the Tel Aviv, Israel program was not adequate.

"When I got there, the advisers were awful," she said. "I got the impression they were thinking, 'What do you want?', 'What are you doing here?'"

Taliaferro said her support group was the friends she made.

"We were connected to the assistant dean of students at the university (in Kenya) ... but our needs weren't being met because he had too much to do," she said.

Learning how to use the telephone, how to order food and making points understood in serious discussions were just a few of the difficulties Lorraine Kowatch (senior-administration of justice) faced in Flensdburg, Germany.

Jason Erb (senior-general arts and sciences), who studied in Cairo, Egypt, found the police and military extremely overbearing. "There's no due process," he said. "It made me appreciate America more."

He remembered the police in Egypt entering a coffee shop to search for hashish. "They roughed the owner up, overturned tables and left."

The general consensus, however, was the difficulties faced were worth overcoming because of the overall benefits.

Kowatch said, "I think you have to remember when you're studying abroad, no matter how hard you try against it, you're going to learn something and change. You might as well be open-minded about it, you can't fight it."

Erb said,"I met people with different political views and lifestyles but when it gets down to it, they're all people. They all have mothers and fathers."

He said people in other countries do not want to cause Americans trouble and they do not want Americans to cause them trouble.

"You can get lost in what the television tells you --'Syria is our enemy' (or) 'Palestine is our enemy,'" he said. "What it boils down to is they're all just people."