"Go Out and Get Lost"

Johns Hopkins sophomore Patrick Kennedy recently penned an excellent essay on the need not just for study abroad, but for independent travel and study. The New Jersey student writes, "If you're a member of my generation, and you want to do something important in the 21st century, I have a simple suggestion: go out and get lost." The essay explores the idea that US student travelers abroad tend to stick together and, as he says, practice English.

Pulitzer prizer and former student traveler Nicholas Kristof was much applauded recently for also suggesting that student travelers get out there and get a little bold ("NY Times Giving Away Student Travel); as well, Kristof advocates that univeral university credit be given for, in fact, getting lost ("Writer Suggests Credit for Student Travel").

Kennedy is thinking smaller but broadly: he suggests students using existing study abroad programs "...stop treating study abroad as a group activity... Hopkins should network individual itineraries that will make the discovery of a foreign culture more than an academic exercise." Kennedy sees this as adaptable by all Hopkins departments; taking that a global step further, any university offering independent study could do the same. Kennedy also advocates tying study abroad into "...intensive, funded research."

What You Can Do

Open a dialogue on your campus to ramp up interest in study abroad or in improving existing study abroad programs. Start with Kristof's suggestion and be prepared to settle for Kennedy's; if your college has no study abroad programs, make the travel writer-ballyhooed point that student travelers can learn more outside the classroom than in.

Whether your school currently supports study abroad or not, you'll get a few folks motivated to get out there and travel. Yourself included -- and by all means, consider solo travel.

Read More

• Patrick Kennedy: "Study abroad needs to be about more than travel"

• Student Travel: "Writer Suggests Credit for Student Travel"

• Student Travel: "Florida School to London: 'We don't have trains blowing up in America'"

• Student Travel: "Why We Need a Gap Year"

• Take a Solo Trip

Related resources: How to Study Abroad in High School | Semester at Sea | College Students Abroad: Volunteer? Work? Study? | Student Exchange Programs | Educational Travel

Photos: top -- unknown; bottom -- Kathleen Crislip

"“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.”"
-- John Hope Franklin