Emma Loved Coursework Abroad

Although a lot of what students talk about when studying abroad is the ability to travel a lot, especially when studying in Europe, but Emma truly loved her course work.  She was studying Child Development, and part of that class involved working part time for practicum in a Danish kindergarten to get a better feel for their overall educational system.  Here is how she described their system. 

 




"The central theme of their early education is free play/nature play, which often includes risk and always includes creativity. As you can see, the outdoor playground materials are very ambiguous to foster creativity (the children always wear full snow suits so they can get as muddy as they please) :). One of the kindergartens has a wood shop where they actually learn how to use saws, axes and other seemingly dangerous tools as early as age 4!"






















Emma said that although her time there was cut short, she was "super grateful" of for the time she spent in Copenhagen.  She was able to travel some while there, and one of those weekend trips was to Amsterdam to the Van Gogh Museum. 







Additionally, she was able to spend time with teammate Shea, who was in the same program as she was and lived in a separate apartment with a different group of students, but in the same apartment complex.

Another one of her trips was to Switzerland to visit teammate El, where they went skydiving!  Emma and Shea started their program earlier than both El and Jaime and were gone from MIDD after the Christmas Break, while both El and Jaime were on campus for J-Term before starting their respective Programs in Prague and New Zealand.  In that sense, both Emma and Shea had a slightly longer time abroad due to when their program started, in addition to when they were sent home due to the global pandemic.

I'm so happy that all four of our juniors were able to have some sort of abroad experience, even if it was cut short.  Now we just have to find a time for Jack to get his abroad experience in.  Jack was due to travel to Japan in mid March, so not only did he not get his abroad experience, he was left without a semester since it was too far into Middlebury's semester to join late, and because his program never started, it was just cancelled rather than moved on-line.  We'll hope to get an update from him sometime in the future when we know more about the status of future abroad trips, and when that sort of travel might again be permitted and deemed safe.