Travel-Study Program to: India
Taj and Tiger Tour
Term To Be Offered: January 2009 (approximately 2-3 weeks)
Contacts:
Robert Bonham | rjbonham@gmail.com | Robert.bonham@maryvillecollege.edu | Professor Emeritus, Fine Arts
Jeff Bay | 981-8023 | jeff.bay@maryvillecollege.edu | Division of Mathematics & Computer Sciences
Course goals:
- To engage with people from a culture very different from their own
- To learn about the interests and concerns of peers from a different culture
- To appreciate the diversity of the geography of India
- To develop an attitude sensitivity to people from different traditions.
- To learn travel skills
Potential Highlights:
- Engage in a service project with local students from India
- Explore an aspect of Indian spirituality (lectures and introduction to meditation) in an ashram
- Ride elephants in a tiger jungle
- Visit several of the major cultural monuments (such as the Taj Mahal),
- Experience a quintessential slice of Indian life on an overnight train ride
- Small group discovery assignments developed to encourage interaction with the people and to encourage self-reliance and discovery.
Course Description:
In India one experiences a huge canvas of coexisting religions, poverty and wealth, beauty and filth, vast needs and ancient wisdom, the exotic and mundane, and much more. An ultimate benefit of a travel study program in India is a sharpening of one’s sense of values and identity. It highlights one’s assumptions, bias, and prejudices regarding people and cultures that are different from the familiar and comfortable. It induces some humility through the realization that we each see and experience the world through limiting perspectives.
Students will be expected to maintain a daily journal, participate in frequent group discussion sessions throughout the trip, prepare and present an individual project during the trip, and participate in pre-and post-meetings.
Tentative Costs: $3000
The price includes:
Airfare, local transportation, accommodation, meals(?) international travel insurance, excursions, as well as application fee and deposit.
Not included:
Passport & visa costs, recommended immunizations.
