An ISU student spent last spring semester living on a cruise ship traveling and learning about the world.

Semester at Sea is a study abroad program that students from any university and with any major can participate in.

“We traveled around on a cruise ship to 12 different countries,” said Krista York, junior in journalism and mass communication and one of the participants in the program.

Students attend classes while on the ship and use the countries that the ship docks at as learning tools.

“Each professor would conduct a field lab and they do their research ahead of time and pick what country would fit best with that class,” York said.

University of Virginia sponsors classes and field labs for Semester at Sea. All class credits are transferrable to other universities and institutions.

“Students are exposed to a variety of cultural environments,” said Monica Ernberger, program coordinator for the Study Abroad Center.

York took a class called “Water for the World,” and the professor took the group to a new water facility in Singapore. They learned about the conversions between Malaysia and Singapore water and how it gets transported from one to the other. Other field labs included a seven-hour lecture given by a diplomat in China.

“We learned about each country we were headed to, and then we would have homework assignments based on that country either before or after, sometimes both, asking what we thought that country would be like and then responding afterwards,” York said.

According to the Semester at Sea website, the program consists of different voyages students can go on. The fall voyage is called the Atlantic Exploration, which goes to South America, Africa and Europe. The spring voyage called Around the World goes to 12 different countries during a span of 106 days.

“I went 23,462 nautical miles around the world,” York said.

Semester at Sea surveyed alumni of the program, and 55 percent of them report the program had a major impact on their lives, while 97 percent said Semester at Sea was their most important college semester.

“Everything was so influential in a way, because I was just taking so much in and emerging myself in every country,” York said.

York said the program gives students opportunities that might not come around every day. York and some of the other students on her cruise ship even went for a camel ride through the deserts of Morocco.

“In Cape Town, [South Africa,] I went sand boarding. It’s like snowboarding but on a huge sand dune,” York said.

York said she was given the chance to broaden her horizons and learn about the world through multiple cultural experiences.

“I think that studying abroad can be a life changing experience,” Ernberger said.

In order to participate in the Semester at Sea study abroad program students must be enrolled full-time at an accredited university, completed one full term, have a 2.75 cumulative grade point average and write a 300 to 500 word essay.