What the heck am I doing?

Sitting on the balcony of my hotel in San Diego, I realize that many people who read this may be clueless to what exactly I’m doing. Well, let me tell ya, I am a little bit too. But that’s part of why its so exciting.

To put it simply, I’m spending the next 106 days traveling by ship around the world, all while taking a semester worth of college classes.

Okay, so what? Well here are the answers to the dozens of questions you must have by now.

Where do I get on/get off? We embark on January 5th in Ensenada, Mexico (about 2 hours south of San Diego). We disembark April 21st in Amsterdam.

Where am I going? Over the next 4 months, we will make stops in Hawaii, Japan, China, Vietnam, Myanmar, India, Mauritius, South Africa, Ghana, Morocco, and the Netherlands. We spend anywhere from a day to six days in each country.

What are you doing in each country? Well, we will find out at the same time.

Okay, so a ship? Yes, a ship. Do I get seasick? We will find out. But yes, a ship! We (about 600 other students and I) will live on the M.V. World Odyssey for the duration of the trip and get off to explore each country.

What classes am I taking? A requirement of the program, as it is technically through Colorado State University, is that we take classes. One class that everyone takes is Global Studies, but the ones that I am specifically taking are Product Design, International Business Finance, and Psychology.

How do classes work? While we are en route to our next destination we are in school. The professors are passengers on this trip like us and we have a normal class schedule. Each class has a series of ‘field classes’ which is basically a field trip while in some countries where an activity or location relates to the class. While in a country if there isn’t a field class, we don’t have class! Think of it like five days on five days off of school.

What the heck is your major? At home, I am a junior with a double major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation & Strategic Communication with a minor in Psychology. I know, I’m nuts! Luckily I was nuts in high school too and graduated with 52 college credits which helps. So I’ll graduate on time (May 2020) with all of that and this trip! P.S., no I don’t know what I want to do yet, any advice is welcome.

Why did I pick this trip? I’m a person who tends to get stir-crazy, I love change, and absolutely thrive in chaos (have you ever met my family?). I’ve also traveled quite a bit, so the idea of going somewhere I’ve spent time before was out of the question. I found this program during my senior year of high school and have been interested ever since. Who wouldn’t want to travel the world given the chance?

Do I know anyone? Yes! I actually know my roommate, Josey. The whole story of how that happend is crazy! Somehow we both randomly ended up in a J-term class we shouldn’t have been together and I casually mentioned that I was applying for the trip. Ironically, a year to date to when she said she wanted to do it is the day we get on the ship (January 5th). Looking back, God absolutely worked in that situation. I also have a good friend, Kyle, going too! Us three together can be a liability, look out for us on the news.

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Will I have WiFi? Nope! While we are en route, there is no internet on the ship with the exception of a few websites (Washington Post, school website, and Wikipedia). When in port, we will have WiFi when available, but other than that we are going rouge here.

How the heck am I updating this thing? Luckily, I have a pretty great group of people that I left back at home. One of those people is Lydia, she’s pretty much the best. She is in charge of making sure what I send her gets to you in a pretty way and that I’m spelling things right (its a weakness). When I have the chance I’ll be doing it too. Hopefully, you’ll at least get an idea of whats going on each week.

Can I contact you? Well of course. When I’ll get back to you is the part that is questionable! You can send me messages on social media and I’ll get them eventually or we have SeaMail, our form of email. I can’t promise I’ll be able to respond, but if you want to send me something my email is katelyn.larson.sp19@semesteratsea.org. Don’t take it too personally if I don’t respond, I want to get the most out of this trip by being present!

What/how much did I pack? A lot. Well, no I’m a pretty good packer. I will say Kyle’s bags weighed more than mine did! Although, I did have a 35lb bag of just snacks that they had to go through at airport security (who knew that they had to test every powder including 4 months of coffee, hot chocolate, and tea). All of that to say, I ended up with a rolling duffle that was 75lb and a snack bag that was 35lb and just a plain old backpack.

Okay, so how much does this thing cost? Well, that really depends on the type of room you get and the voyage you choose. Luckily, my home university carries over all my scholarships so it is comparable for a semester at home for me! But can you really put a price on seeing the world?

What am I doing after? After disembarkation, we (Josey, Kyle, and I) be heading to the tulip festival in Amsterdam and then to Iceland for a few days then home! Once we get home life will resume like normal and we will all head back to school in the fall.

Hopefully, that begins to answer a few questions! I’ll try to answer them the best I can. If I can’t maybe my mom can. If she can’t, my home roommate, Erika, absolutely can, someone should make sure shes surviving without me while they’re at it. P.S. whoops for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

-Katelyn