Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INSTITUTE FOR SHIPBOARD EDUCATION
study at a maritime campus
ON THE SEVEN SEAS
Humankind's pursuit of knowledge has been intricately linked to ships and
the sea.
—Institute for Shipboard Education mission statement
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Most of your shipmates will be college kids, 18- to 22-year-olds studying hard to get a
semester's worth of credits in something like anthropology or women's studies. But if you're
interested in traveling and learning, you'd be hard pressed to find a better vacation than the
Institute for Shipboard Education's “Semester at Sea.” Since 1963, this special program, first
known as the University of the Seven Seas, then as World Campus Afloat, has been provid-
ing a globe-circling international education for college students who take one full semester (a
hundred days) aboard a cruise ship. Nearly 40,000 students from colleges around the country
have studied and traveled with the institute so far.
Every year, this floating campus opens up anywhere from 30 to 60 of its cabins to adults
who want to audit the more than 70 different classes offered each semester. These “lifelong
learners,” as the institute calls them, participate fully in the spring, fall, or summer semester
of the at-sea college, often volunteering to serve as “temporary family” to the 640 students.
Although you can certainly take the classes for college credit if you want to (they're all fully
accredited through the University of Virginia), you can skip all the entrance exams and simply
sign up for the vicarious pleasure of taking university-level courses along with university stu-
dents.
Even if you can't find the time for either of the two hundred-day round-the-world jour-
neys fall and spring or the 65-day summer journey, you can still sign up for Seminars at Sea,
abbreviated 12- to 14-day trips offered once a year during the New Year's holiday and possibly
in the summer as well. These trips offer lectures, discussions, workshops, and field programs
at various ports of call, usually depending on where the M/V
Explorer
needs to dock next.
In 2006, for example, the Seminar at Sea took place in the Caribbean and offered Spanish-
