Drake Senior Goes Abroad,
Learns to Love Other Cultures

By Laura Micheli
CyberNews Staff Reporter

March 12, 2002

Ever since she saw Salzburg, Austria, in "The Sound of Music" when she was 4-years-old, Summer Zwanziger (BN4) wanted to visit the city. Once there, Zwanziger realized what she loved most about foreign countries was not so much the places themselves as the people who lived there.

"That's what I love about other places," Zwanziger said, "the people."

Zwanziger, a Drake senior, has studied abroad twice during her career as a Drake student. She studied in Salzburg, Austria, during the fall semester of 1999. Last semester Zwanziger spent a semester at sea, during which she visited Vancouver, Kobe, Hong Kong, Beijing, Saigon, Singapore, Madras, Seychelles, Cape Town, Salvador, Havana and Miami.

Zwanziger said she wanted to visit Austria, not only because of "The Sound of Music", but also because Zwanziger's family is originally from around Munich, Germany, which is near Salzburg. She said she decided to do a semester at sea while in Salzburg because a friend she made in Austria had just completed a semester at sea herself, and Zwanziger knew she wanted to have the opportunity to do the same.

Zwanziger said that once you have been to another country and experienced the culture, it makes you "hungry for more knowledge."

"I always want to meet and learn about other people and go other places now," she said.

She also said that while she knows she should not really compare her two trips, she enjoyed her semester in Austria more.

"I became an Austrian while I was there... it had a greater impact on me," Zwanziger said. "I made friends (in Austria) that I know I will keep in touch with my entire life."

While on her semester at sea, Zwanziger said, she enjoyed herself but, she added, "I was always the tourist in those places, I never blended... it was more like a buffet of cultures."

When asked what her "coolest" experience was while away, Zwanziger mentioned climbing the Great Wall of China, but then returned to the topic of the friendships she had made, and the people in the countries she had visited.

Zwanziger said her favorite thing to do in Salzburg was "sit in a cafe and watch the world walk by me."

While she had many positive experiences while overseas, Zwanziger said there were some hard parts about her semesters abroad.

"In general, the rigor of trying to be a tourist and a student at the same time can be difficult... because you're learning a new culture, it's hard academically," Zwanziger said.

She said the hardest thing she had to deal with was the poverty she witnessed in some of the countries she visited while completing her semester at sea. Madras, India, she said, was the worst in terms of poverty.

"As soon as you left the port area children would grab onto you - death grip - pleading for... anything you could give them in another language you don't understand. They would follow you around like that for the whole day while you were walking around the city," Zwanziger said.

She told eye-opening stories about people she encountered in such poverty-stricken areas. One was about a little boy in Madras, whom her and her friends called Archie, who offered Zwanziger a piece of cloth to cover her head while it was raining, even though his own clothes were tattered and worn. She also talked about her tour guide in Saigon who only made $40 a month, yet wanted to take Zwanziger out to dinner, telling her that she should not have to pay because she was a student.

"Even though students are considered to be poor here, we're rich everywhere else," Zwanziger said.

Despite the difficulties that might arise from studying abroad, Zwanziger said she definitely still feels it was entirely worth the experience.

"I would recommend study abroad to other students because you get to see other places, and see and meet new people. You also learn a lot about self-reliance - that you are strong and you can do it," she said, referring to the multitude of challenges facing a student studying abroad.

Zwanziger wants to work in risk management for an international insurance company as an international underwriter. She hopes to work in London and get her Ph.D. at the London School of Business. After being in London for two or three years she would like to come back the United States to teach at a university, but she said that if the school should ever need a sponsor for an overseas trip, she would be the first to volunteer.

Anyone interested in studying abroad should contact Trudi Holst, assistant director of the international program, as soon as possible. Holst said, "The earlier you go in your academic career, the better."

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