Tag: Ghana

Coming Home From A Summer Abroad

Coming Home From A Summer Abroad

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I’m home! I’m back to my home at Loyola as well as my home in America. I spent the summer abroad in Ghana, Africa. I was in Ghana for two and a half months, both volunteering and studying abroad. I studied through a program called USAC that Loyola partners with to help students go global.

I spent the first month of my time in Ghana volunteering at an orphanage that also functions as a primary school during the day. I helped take care of the children there in the mornings/evenings and during the day I had the opportunity to help teach. It was definitely one of the most amazing and rewarding experiences of my life. I volunteered through a program called IVHQ. They are a relatively cheap organization that has program sites all over the world.

After my time at the orphanage I moved to the capital city of Ghana which is Accra. I lived in a student hostel on the campus of the University of Ghana. I took 6 summer credits while there: African Literature, African Music and Dance, and a Service Learning. For my service learning I worked with a local NGO called S.I.S.S. or Self-help Initiative Support Services. S.I.S.S. works with people who live in the slums in Accra. It puts them through a program that not only teaches them about vital things such as work ethic and motivation but each participant learns a trade that they are able to make money off of after they graduate from the program. Some of these trades include things such as bead making, batik fabric making, and catering.

I also had the opportunity to travel almost every weekend. I spent some weekends on Ghana’s beautiful beaches, visited the Cape Coast Castle where slaves were held before being shipped to the Americas, saw elephants in the northern regions and monkeys in the eastern regions. I also was able to take a weekend off of traveling toward the end of my trip and make it back to the orphanage to visit the children that I had grown so close with.

I did so many amazing things in Ghana and had so many experiences that I could not go into detail about in this post. But don’t worry! I will definitely write another blog or two describing some of my experiences in more detail in the near future. In the meantime, welcome back to school and I hope you are adjusting better than I am! I still need to get my notebooks!

Children playing at the orphanage.
Elephants in Ghana!

Summer Plans

Summer Plans

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January seems a little early to be making summer plans doesn’t it? I thought so too, until I decided to study abroad in Ghana this summer! In fact, I began looking into studying abroad in October! I guess that’s what happens when you are as excited about future plans as I am.

I was able to do a lot of the work, such as applying, over winter break. I also researched volunteer opportunities in Ghana. I figure that I might as well make the most of the opportunities I have while I’m there. I found an organization, International Volunteer HQ, that offers short-term volunteer opportunities in Ghana.

I applied to IVHQ and was accepted to volunteer teach in a rural school in Ghana for three weeks before my study abroad program! I am so excited!

Talking about this makes me wish it was summer already. I have to pull myself back to reality though and focus on the semester at hand. It ‘s going to be a tough one but my trip to Ghana this summer is a bright light at the end of the tunnel!

Check out this cool poster of Africa that my roommate got me after finding out that I was accepted into my programs!

“Where you live should no longer determine whether you live” -Bono
Beginning The Study Abroad Process

Beginning The Study Abroad Process

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One of the great things about Loyola is that they really encourage their students to study abroad. And many students do!

Loyola makes it really easy to study abroad by providing a ton of information on their website and offering a lot of different study abroad options. We even have a campus in Rome, Italy and a program in Beijing, China! Students can go to these international campuses and pay roughly the same tuition and take classes that will count toward their graduating requirements with no hassle of getting course approvals from department heads.

As a student, you can study abroad for a year, a semester, 6 weeks in the summer and some programs even have 2 week programs in the summer or over winter break. If you are an education major, you even have the opportunity to do your student teaching in Rome! How cool would that be? Student teachers teach at an international school so no Italian is required and they live on Loyola’s campus.

I am taking advantage of the summer programs and hoping to study in Ghana this upcoming summer. Loyola does not have a campus in Ghana but I am able to apply through a program called USAC. Loyola also offers students opportunities through the Institute for the International Educator of Students program or IES and the School for International Training or SIT. I encourage you guys to click on these links and look at the dozens and dozens of countries and cities world-wide that Loyola students are offered the opportunity to study in.

I have just begun the process of applying for study abroad but so far it has been super easy! Loyola has a database that has a list of the pre-approved courses in Ghana and all of the course I am interested in are already approved! My adviser told me that if a course happened to not already be approved, it is pretty easy to get most courses approved. I would just need to fill out a request form and bring it to the head of the appropriate department.

Loyola’s website has walked me through the necessary steps for applying to the study abroad program and it has not been confusing like I feared it might be. I will keep all of you updated when I find out more about my study abroad progress and in the meantime check out all of the cool countries you could go to if you wanted!