There was no study abroad experience in my time at Longwood. I have wanted to study abroad even before coming here, one of my first questions during a tour was about the study abroad programs and support. I attempted to set up a study abroad to Japan multiple times a semester, I even had multiple backup plans in case one program was full or one semester didn’t work out for any reason. As we know COVID-19 had a major effect on studying abroad and is the main reason I was unable to go. After COVID I attempted to find other places as Japan had not yet opened up its borders for travel and I was running out of time to complete my study abroad requirement for honors. So for this, I looked at Argentina to do a rock climbing trip as this would have completed some credits for my Outdoor Education minor and been a ton of fun. These trips to Argentina were also canceled and I could not rely on the one going my last semester (would have left a couple days ago if I had gone) as I did not know if it would be going or also be canceled. Lastly, I took a ‘study away’ class which would have us taking a trip to Pittsburg during our spring break to learn there and at least travel outside of our immediate area for the learning. This was then canceled about a week before the semester started. Therefore, as I had been attempting to go abroad since day one I thought I had a relatively good leg to stand on when I asked to have the requirement waived. This was apparently not something that could be done though as I was forced into taking an annoying class that held absolutely no merit in my book. As described on the page itself, reference Honors 490 page, this class was extremely unorganized and did not give me any of the main takeaways from a study abroad. I was also not able to choose any other options as it was too late for the Brock experience sign-ups for that semester and I did not have any time going forward for summers. Given how this class did not satisfy any of my own requirements for a study abroad I refuse to count it for myself as one, this will only be counted as a study abroad for Longwood’s papers. Had the rules been different and I was able to get my study abroad requirement exempted (as I had tried numerous times to go and extenuating circumstances stopped me) I may have been able to go this coming semester as I would have been able to add one class to the previous semester to be done with my degree, therefore I would have been able to take the semester in Japan as I wanted. This still of course would not have given me any perspective level (200+) credit for Japanese though as the requirements for that are even worse. There needs to be restructuring here to be more flexible in these specific kinds of events, I understand that this was an unprecedented time and came out of nowhere; however, because it was so unprecedented there should have been more flexibility and support for students instead of just trying to get us to pay more money to Longwood. If I had not attempted constantly to study abroad and just wanted an option then this class, even with it being not a good class, would have been fine, however, I had been trying constantly and had clear goals as to why I wanted to study abroad that were not met by this class.
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