When we were in college, spring break meant lying on the beach drink in hand (Cancun or Acapulco was often the destination of choice), reading Vogue (GQ for the guys out there) and delightfully indulgent tabloids, and working on bronzing your Vitamin D deficient skin.
Now that we’re in graduate school at SIPA, things are slightly different. We have traded in those carefree beach days for capstone work trips. That’s right folks, many of us are heading into the field over the next week to work on our semester-long projects in places like Honduras, Tanzania, Jordan, Kosovo and India.
Many of you may think we would be despondent over this change. No more drinks with tiny umbrellas in a beautiful locale? But truthfully, these capstone trips are far better than any spring break of our undergraduate days. The fulfilling work we do overseas furthers our understanding of international affairs and development, and many of the trips have a sightseeing component as well (The Tanzania kids are off to Zanzibar– and we think that’s very cool).
Many SIPA students not traveling for their capstone project over spring break are still taking advantage of the school’s extracurricular options. The Japanese Student Association is hosting a trip to Tokyo, and the Arab Student Association is organizing a Moroccan adventure that includes stops in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, and Tangier.
And of course, though they are few and far between, there are those among us that are opting for Cancun.
