To the Editors:
While I applaud the fact that Mr. Isseroff's most recent column steps back ("Studying abroad hinders a student's personal growth") and takes a critical look at off-campus study, many of his points merit a second look.
Isseroff argues that Bowdoin is the ideal place to "forge an intellect and a modicum of independence." Taking one (or two) of those precious semesters to go elsewhere, as he proposes, could bring this trajectory to a screeching halt.
Yet study abroad was, for me, and so many of my peers, not a break in the Bowdoin education, but an enrichment of ongoing coursework. I may be guilty of the Stendhal syndrome that Isseroff decries, but it didn't set any intellectual or "emasculating" limits.
Yes, my jaw dropped when I saw Courbet's Burial at Ornans, and yes, it was arguably better in person than at the 8:30 a.m. slide projection in Beam, but I couldn't have had one experience without the other. We underestimate the Bowdoin curriculum if we assume that students go abroad and remain "relegated to [the role of] sightseers."
Isseroff's argument illuminates a key question in regards to the issue of off-campus study: can a student living abroad progress from the passive, consumption-oriented state of bread-and-butter tourism, to a more willful level of cultural and civic engagement?
Moreover, can a student who chooses to stay on campus avoid the pitfall of being "force-fed to the point" where he or she has "no choice but to stumble upon a discipline" they would like to belong to and pursue? In both cases, I hope the answer is yes.
Sincerely,
Caitlin Beach '10
Angers, France