By Rachel Berry

As a snowstorm descended on Ohio, bringing with it bone-chilling cold, junior Jugal Jain was driving to the airport.

“I’m so glad I’m getting out of this weather,” he thought to himself.

At the airport Jain and the rest of his classmates prepared to leave the cold behind as they traveled to Mazatlan, Mexico, as part of the Community Engagement in Mexico winter term program. This four-week program included a week online at home, a week taking courses in Oxford, a week in Mexico and another week in Oxford afterwards.

The trip was mainly engineering majors, who took an engineering economics class as part of the study abroad. They also took a course called families and communication in Mexico. The structure of the trip allowed students to do a lot of the coursework in the United States, so they could focus on gathering data and applying their studies during their time in Mexico.

While in Mazatlan, the students focused on community service as they worked on construction projects. They also spent much of their time at a girls’ home and a center for children with special needs.

“The best part [of the trip] was spending time with those children and actually realizing how much we take for granted,” Jain said. “[I] realized how happy they were.”

Jain said the children at these homes had very little, yet they were so much more joyful than the Miami students who had so many more resources and opportunities.

“That trip changed us all in a way,” Jain said.

Back in America, another group of Miami students was set to travel to New York City, a place vastly different from that small village in Mexico.

Nicole Richards is a junior marketing major with an interest in fashion. She had considered working in merchandising after graduation but had never taken a fashion class and wanted to explore the career field more. When scrolling through study abroad and away options, she stumbled upon a trip called Miami University NYC: Fashion and Retail’s Big Show.

Richards saw this as an opportunity to explore the world of fashion and see if it was something she would be interested in pursuing as a career. This program let her earn credits for a marketing course while also attending conferences and meeting with professionals from various retailers, such as Coach, Ann Inc and New Avon LLC. 

“It’s something that a class can’t teach you,” Richards said. “[You’re able to] hear from people that are doing what you want to be doing and see day-to-day roles of what they’re doing and see the offices that they’re in and be surrounded by this community of people that are interested in a similar thing.”

Part of the trip included interviews with employers in the fashion industry, and Richards eventually received an internship from the connections she made while she was in New York.

“I knew it was something that I was interested in, but I didn’t know how to get where I needed to get,” Richards said. “It really turned into something that I’m excited about.”

While Richards was networking in New York, sophomore Joshua Brown was in Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), studying their religion and culture.

He chose this program because it helped him work towards his comparative religion major. The students took a six-credit-hour course, REL 399U Arabian Gulf in Social Transition: Religious, Tribal and Global Influences. They learned about the history of the countries they visited and how religion influenced that history.

Through the program, the students were able to experience two very different cities. In the UAE, they went to the capital city, Abu Dhabi. Although Brown enjoyed his time there, he said there wasn’t much to distinguish it from an American urban environment.

The students also went to Muscat, Oman, which Brown says was a stark contrast to their time in Abu Dhabi. In Muscat, they stayed in a less developed area, which gave it a homier feeling.

“It felt more authentic,” Brown said.

His favorite part of the study abroad experience was traveling around Muscat, particularly going to a small Turkish cafe that he and his friends enjoyed.

“[Studying abroad allows us to] step outside of our own culture and our own habits and just recognize how each place kind of expects different things and really values different things,” Brown said.

Where in the world will you go?