A lot of us think about studying abroad, but few of us actually get the opportunity.  Meet Valerie Lapointe, whose blog depicts her experience of taking classes on the other side of the globe – Australia!  Filled with beautiful pictures and detailed descriptions, Valerie captures her time in Australia perfectly.  For those of us who can’t travel for a year, live vicariously through Valerina!

http://valerina.umwblogs.org/

Sometimes it’s strange how different parts of our lives correlate. In this featured blog entry, “Globalization helping me in my life”, the writer, Sam, gets first hand experience with the ways the internet and real life can sometimes collide. Read how Sam used her personal blog (Y U NO tell which one?) to brush up on conversational skills in Spanish.

http://slitchford.umwblogs.org/2011/09/20/globalization-helping-me-in-my-life/

Image credit: “Abstract Globalization” by Raoul.Duke

In honor of the Freedom Rider’s 50th Anniversary, juniors Lindsay Cutler and Charles Girard are traveling down to Jackson, Mississippi, to join in the celebration happening there.  These students, both American Studies majors, spent the spring 2011 semester studying the Freedom Rides in Dr. Anand Rao’s course “Documenting Social Movements” and Dr. Tim O’Donnell’s “Freedom Rides”.

From Fredericksburg to Jackson

The journey, which officially began on May 21st as they left campus via Lindsay’s car, “The Bull”, has been faithfully documented with at least one post a day describing the events, the people they meet, and the sense of history they have encountered.

Visit their blog here: “From Fredericksburg to Jackson”

Check out the official Mississippi event website here: “Return of the Freedom Riders“

The students of Carole Garmon’s “Approaches to Video Art” course are not only studying video art, but they are making some of there own. Check out this “Dear Carole….” video in which the students tell their professor, one-by-one, why they are leaving class. This is too awesome, brilliant work—and it is amazing to see how the study of art and the making of art work together in a course—-and this video provides perfect evidence. What’s more, it was a class project through and through, they all brought something to the table….and then left.

View the video here.

David Kondner, who is part of professor Angela Pitts’s Katabasis Freshman Seminar, has done a brilliant job animating the epic poem “The Aenied” for his final project. I can’t begin to imagine the time and energy that went into this, and what’s more it’s quite fun. Just another example of the amazing work happening around UMW.

View the video here.