It's not surprising the School of International Service offers a variety of ways to study, research or intern abroad. I personally took advantage of the opportunities to study abroad in Malaysia last summer. By combining an internship with a feminist NGO in Kuala Lumpur and a course led by Prof. Heng I earned six credit hours and spent a total of 10 weeks in the country. I had been to Southeast Asia before, but the combination of readings, lectures, site visits and guest speakers made this a unique and rich learning experience! Though it was intense at times, it was so helpful to understand the history and politics behind the current events Malaysians wanted to talk about. By the end of my summer, I was able to have a lengthy and lively political conversation with a tour guide in Sabah as we returned to Kota Kinabalu after a day of white water rafting; he was very impressed by my knowledge :)
This experience and the contacts I made in Malaysia continue to shape my research interests and coursework. I recently applied for a Boren Fellowship to return to Malaysia to research religion, ethnicity and gender. This research will shape my SRP. In the classroom at AU, I can see that other IPCR students who studied abroad last summer in South Africa or Israel and Palestine are also maximizing their experiences. It adds to class discussions and has been instrumental in their SRP work. Check out the SIS
Summer Abroad Program website to see what other countries are available, as well as program descriptions. http://www.american.edu/sis/summer/
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