Interdisciplinarity Abroad

With the fall semester coming to a close, I can’t help but think about all of the exciting things that are going to be happening during 2017. One of the events that I am most excited for is to study abroad during the summer for a month. I will be spending four weeks in Athens, Greece taking a Humanities class through Geneseo. Anyone who knows me well knows that traveling is a big part of my life. I have always an urge to travel and see new places because of the family that I was raised in. Because my mother is a social studies teacher, our family has always believed that even the smallest of travel should allow you to see a different culture and grow from that experience. This is why studying abroad during my colleges days was something that seemed very important to me. In Interdisciplinarity, by Joe Maran, they suggest that in other countries they encourage students to try and find ways of “co-operation between disciplines” (p. 48) in order to create a fuller experience in learning. They recommend that by integrating two different studies together you are getting interdisciplinary studying at its best. This is something that I really do hope to gain from studying abroad in Greece. While the material that we are going to be reading and learning about might be considered English and the experience and the places that we are going to be visiting would be considered Social Studies, having the two working as one will hopefully give me an experience that will enhance what the two subjects could have taught me on their own to create a fuller understanding.