In Your Own Words

Found at Sea
Senior Liz Biebl expected the Semester at Sea program to provide her with the voyage of a lifetime, but she didn't know how radically the journey would change her life. Here she tells how a three-month trip forever altered her view of the world.

Family vacations had given me a traveler's glimpse of the globe, but I didn't realize as I stood aboard the S.S. Universe Explorer, waved goodbye and set sail on a floating university, that this trip would reveal the real world.

I wasn't sure what to expect as I headed to Cuba, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius, India, Singapore, Vietnam, China and Japan, as part of the Semester at Sea program. As it turned out, I learned more, after three months of being thrust into one culture after another, than I had after nearly four years of college.

Inequalities were presented before me in a new and much more personal light. I experienced people, places, and emotions that I never would have fully understood otherwise, and the worldwide effects of political unrest, religious struggles, globalization and lack of resources for development became disturbingly evident.

The Institute for Shipboard Education has offered the Semester at Sea program for more than 25 years, and currently is affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh. Semester at Sea offers 100-day voyages in the spring and the fall, as well as a 60-day voyage in the summer. Standard college-level classes are conducted at sea, no matter how much the ship is rocking, and field programs often are integrated into the coursework.

We left from the Bahamas, and the S.S. Universe Explorer first sailed to Havana, Cuba. In port, I felt as though I had stepped back in time, with the seemingly ancient architecture and old American cars lining the streets. The people I met were just as amazing. Many of them were extremely poor, but they also were some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Students from the University of Havana proudly showed us the city's sights. They were students just like me, but it was obvious their daily reality was much different from mine.

After I spent a few days in Varadero Beach, just a few hours outside of Havana, the entire shipboard community was invited to meet with Fidel Castro ... and to listen to him speak for five hours!

When we stopped in India, I didn't need even five minutes to realize I was in for the most astounding port on the itinerary. The population in India hovers somewhere around the 1-billion mark, and the people occupy an area that is roughly one-third the size of the United States. It seemed like most of them were surrounding me as I took my first steps outside the port area in Chennai and was bombarded from all sides by shouting vendors and taxi drivers. The overwhelming feeling was amplified by trips outside Chennai. The everyday sights, smells and sounds of India abruptly awakened both mind and senses.

There is an unequivocal beauty in the Taj Mahal and the Ganges River, but there is also the gloom and sadness of lepers and small children sleeping amid piles of trash on roads.

I was filled with that same assortment of emotions in every country I visited. There is no doubt in my mind that many of the peopleI encountered live with some happiness in their lives, despite facing struggles that seem absolutely humiliating and intolerable in the western world. This cannot be true for everyone, though. Many of these people must recognize the huge disparity between rich and poor. But do they know the extent of it? And what can we, and they, do about it?

Semester at Sea allowed me to trek through the Amazon, to explore the southern tip of Africa, and to hike along the Great Wall of China. But most important, I was able to see contrasts in the world that often are overshadowed by natural and manmade beauty. Few people in this world have the privilege of tasting bits and pieces of lives so different from their own, and then returning to the comfortable life they left behind. I never felt that I took my lifestyle for granted before, but now I find myself regularly questioning why and how the people of the world exist among such sharp contrasts. I now feel that I'm part of a small, fortunate group of people who have been allowed to see another side of life.

If you would like to share an experience "In Your Own Words,"
please contact us for guidelines first: e-mail mhaskins@sandiego.edu
or call Mike Haskins at (619) 260-4684.