Gap Year Seminar and Field Class

What has Jen been up to on the ship you ask? Here’s a quick run down on her work as a faculty member on the ship working with gap year students:

Most of the people on Semester at Sea are college students (roughly 500 of them). But there’s a relatively small population (approximately 30) of “gap year” students on the ship. Like the college students, gap year students can take classes on the ship and transfer them to an institution of higher education in the future. In addition to that, ALL gap year students are required to take a course called “New Student Seminar” taught by yours truly (and my friend, Melissa Carlson who is a Resident Director on the ship and has a “collateral assignment” working with gap year students). The purpose of the course is to help the students to get oriented to the Semester at Sea community, aid their transition to college, encourage self -exploration/reflection, and reinforce the interdisciplinary cross-cultural content being taught ship wide. I teach two sections of the class (with approximately 15 in each group), both on “A days” while we are at sea.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this group before arriving on board, and that’s probably a good thing because they come from all kinds of different backgrounds. Some are super high achieving high school students who have completed all high school content in 3.5 years and are doing Semester at Sea as their final semester before May 2023 graduation. Several come from Europe, Israel, or other countries around the world where a “gap year,” or time off between the completion of high school and the start of university, is a more typical pathway post-secondary school (compared to the United States). Some I would consider “independent minors” -- students who are “on their own” for a variety of reasons and are motivated to travel. Some are incredibly privileged (think “boarding school since middle school with the Walton descendants and attending the Super Bowl every year” privileged). Some don’t really want to be on the voyage at all, but are pressured by their parents to do so (ugh—super tough situation). Some have handfuls of community college credit but haven’t settled on a 4-year program yet. Most are 17 or 18 years old. In section 2, I’ve also invited four 17/18 year old “ship kids” (these are teens whose parents are faculty/staff on the ship who are traveling with their family) to join section 2 (not for credit, but for community and learning).

The closest experience I’ve had to working with this age group and this type of content is working with Key students (1st years) at Colorado State, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it. But, I can say that it’s been a great experience. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience so far, and I think the students feel the same way. I’ve found that pedagogy matters a lot in terms of success in the classroom on SAS, and delivering content through experiential activities, where all of the students are highly involved, is a slam dunk (as opposed to lecturing).

All classes on Semester at Sea have an affiliated “field class,” which is a full day of experiential learning in one of the ports. With the New Student Seminar the field class always occurs in the first port, in our case Mumbai, INDIA. The hope is that in situating the field class very early in the voyage, it supports the students in building their community before they start independent travel. It’s also an opportunity to model how to curate a positive port experience for oneself (one stereotype of gap year students on Semester at Sea is that they make questionable decisions in port, i.e. heavy drinking).

The field class for section 1 was scheduled for Day 1 in India and the field class for section 2 was scheduled for Day 6 in India. Both had identical itineraries. While I was with the students, Chris and the Johnson-Leck kids bumped around Mumbai.

In the morning for the field class, we put together a scavenger hunt/amazing race where the students were put into small groups and had to perform tasks I would consider “basic competencies” when entering/navigating a port city. They had to hail a local taxi (and negotiate the fare), exchange money, purchase a local food item from a particular well-known bakery, purchase an item in the market (and negotiate the price), and visit several key landmarks. The clues were written in such a way that the students often had to talk to the local people to figure out the answers and find their way around. The students really enjoyed it and it seemed to be effective in cultivating the skills we were looking for.

From there, we enjoyed an amazing Indian food buffet at a restaurant called “The Copper Chimney.” It was a multicourse meal with soup, appetizers, main dish, salads, and dessert, and was wonderful (ironically, Chris ended up at the same spot with the kids on day 1 😊).

In the afternoon we traveled to Dharavi. It’s right in the heart of Mumbai and is about 2.1 square kilometers large with a population of over 1 million people. It is very, very densely populated. A huge number of informal industries function in Dharavi and employ the residents as well migrant laborers who moved to Dharavi for work. Our group had the opportunity to tour several of these industries—leather making, textiles, pottery, and plastic recycling. The guide shared with us that collectively these industries yield about $1 billion annually. This was an eye-opening experience for me, and many of the students. The living conditions are pretty challenging in Dharavi, and at several points on our tour I felt uneasy that we might be engaging in a form of “poverty tourism.” Although our tour focused on “work” and “industries,” in almost all cases the places where laborers were performing their work were located right underneath their sleeping quarters/homes. Sometimes I felt like our presence was invasive and we shouldn’t have been there. I asked our guide, who was a native of Dharavi, about how the people felt about visitors like us, and he quickly brushed off my concern, reiterating that the people of Dharavi are proud of the contributions of their work (as they should be). Still, even now, I feel a little unsettled when I think about the impact of our presence there.

One huge takeaway for me about the walking tour of Dharavi industries is that as consumers in the west, we typically only have understanding/knowledge/interaction with the last step on a very long supply chain. Our Dharavi tour revealed what the beginning of that process looks like – it showed me the people and the working/living conditions of the workers. It showed me how the people doing the hardest and largest portions of the work get paid the least. Seeing it reinforced my discomfort with global capitalism and how it contributes invisibility and dehumanization. It was a gift to see it, an important learning moment, but also really hard.

Since we departed India, we’ve spent a lot of class time on the ship processing our experiences in Dharavi and attempting to make meaning of what we saw there. The students appreciate the chance to talk over their experiences with their peers, and have requested that we take time after each port to do so.

In summary: So far, so good with the gap year crew!