Kammi Sheeler--from Bosnia to Morocco

For some time one of our majors, Kammi Sheeler, has talked about wanting to study the Balkans--a place where we have no study abroad. Settling on Morocco instead, I suggested that she swing through the region on her way to North Africa. And that's just what she did. By way of full disclosure, I think the educational future belongs more to shorter independent trips like this than the traditional study abroad. Anyway, enough of me, here's what Kammi report:

Mostar, Bosnia

Thanks to a LOT of help Professor O'Neil and support from the PG department (for which I am extremely grateful) I just recently finished an amazing three week trip to the Western Balkans. Since Puget Sound does not offer any study abroad options in Eastern Europe I picked another program of interest in Morocco, but I still wanted to spend some time in the Balkans learning as much as I could in order to apply the experience to future opportunities for research, study, internships, etc. so Prof O'Neil helped me with planning and making conacts in the region, and in August I left the US for what ended up being an incredibly educational, fun, and rewarding experience.

I spent about 5 days each in Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina, and Serbia (plus a couple days in Hungary) visiting monuments and museums and meeting with local students, families, and university professors to learn more about the region. The meetings with professors were especially valuable in helping me find resources and frame research questions, so I would definitely recommend that students traveling to places of academic interest seek out those kinds of opportunities as well. Personally I got very positive responses and a lot of useful insight.

Overall it was a great experience for me to be traveling independently and learning from first hand experience and the various perspectives of locals. I definitely got more information out of those three weeks than I did out of any of the books I read for research papers before. I also got a lot of ideas for future research and paper topics and plan on pursuing opportunities to return to the Balkans for a longer time next summer.

So thank you again to the PG department and especially Professor O'Neil for helping me get the most out of this opportunity and experience. Again, I'd strongly encourage anyone with a specific geographic area of interest to find a way to spend some time there, even if it is not an option for study abroad. If anyone is interested in the Balkans please feel free to contact me--I'd love to share stories and experiences.

Hope all is well back at Puget Sound!

Kammi Sheeler