Editor’s note: This is the second part in a three-part series about students’ experiences with Iowa State’s study abroad program.

Oceans have separated study abroad students from their loved ones, but that hasn’t stopped them from traveling around the world.

Alison Schutte, sophomore in Russian, has traveled to Russia twice.

While in high school, she went to Mendeleevo, and last summer, she traveled to Moscow through Iowa State’s study abroad program.

Schutte said when she first arrived in Russia, she was terrified that she wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with family and friends.

“When I got over there, I couldn’t even call home because no one knew the code [to the United States],” she said.

“I couldn’t even get ahold of my parents to let them know I was OK the first day,” Schutte said.

Jason Losh, senior in art and design, spent last semester in Rome, Italy. He also said he was apprehensive about whether he would be able to keep in touch with his family and his best friend.

“I had no clue how anything worked over there,” he said.

Schutte said after a while, it grew easier to keep in contact. She said it was “tremendously easier” to keep in touch with people the second time she was in Russia.

“We had access to so many more things,” she said. “We had a computer, so we had access to e-mail all the time. It was a lot easier.”

Schutte said she rarely called home because it was too expensive.

“We kept in touch mostly through written letters, and once we both had access to e-mail, then we used e-mail,” she said.

Misty Metschke, who participated in the “Semester at Sea” program in fall 1997, left her fianc‚ behind while she sailed around the world.

She, too, found letters to be a good alternative to the $10 per minute phone calls.

“I wrote 10-page letters home and mailed them at every port,” said Metschke, who was a senior in mechanical engineering at the time.

It took between two and three weeks for her letters to reach home.

In order for her friends back home to correspond with her, they had to meet certain deadlines for her to receive letters at each port.

Metschke said the main problem with writing letters was trying to put the emotions she felt onto paper.

“It’s especially difficult trying to put down this emotion and hoping what you write is understood,” Metschke said.

“I’m sitting on top of one of the Seven Wonders of the World thinking that there is no way I can ever describe the experience,” she said.

Despite the cost, Losh said he used a phone card to talk with people back home because of Italy’s inconvenient postal system.

“[Calling] was expensive, but with Italy’s mail system — I had a package sent to me, and within three and a half months, I still [hadn’t received it]. I still don’t know where it’s at,” he said.

Losh talked with his parents and his best friend on the phone at least once every week and a half to two weeks.

“It was worth it; calling home is always a secure feeling,” he said.

Schutte said she enjoyed keeping in touch with loved ones while she was overseas.

“It made me and them a little more happier — just knowing that when you’re so far away, [you can keep in touch],” she said. “When you’re overseas, it’s like a whole different world.”

Stephanie Seymour, senior in exercise and sport science, studied abroad in Wales last semester.

Seymour said the lapse in having contact with family and friends was taxing, but the rewards of studying abroad seem to outweigh the drawbacks.

“The only thing about being abroad that I didn’t like was that I went so long without seeing family and friends,” Seymour said.

“But the travel opportunities and interesting people I met made that seem not so bad,” she said.