Make the world your classroom
Seamester program lets college students set their own course of study.
Wed, Jan 20 2010 at 9:00 AM EST
Photo: Seamester/Flickr Bored of the traditional classroom setting? Maybe you dream of pursuing your education while sailing on an 80-day voyage which begins in Tortola and takes you as far south as Grenada while making stops at nearly every island in the Eastern Caribbean? A semester at sea, or "Seamester," might be just what you need to shake up your college education.
Have I mentioned that I am an avid sailor? I learned to sail about 15 years ago, and one of the coolest things I have ever done was to sail a 27-foot sailboat from Virginia to the Florida Keys. I learned more about nature during that six-month voyage then I did from my entire undergraduate and graduate programs. So while I have never done an actual semester at sea (my husband and I took our journey together, well after college and well before kids,) I can only imagine the benefits that could be gained by learning about the ocean or marine engineering while actually living and sailing at sea.
The Seamester program is definitely pricey — as high as $20K for a 90-day trip that sails through the Cuba and Bermuda in the Caribbean to France and Spain in the Mediterranean — but there is a loan program available to students who can't cough up that kind of cash. The experience of sailing across major oceans, scuba diving world-renowned sites and exploring unique cultures may just prove to be priceless.
Check it out ... even if it only gives you something to dream about during your next classroom lecture.
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