{"id":442,"date":"2016-07-12T17:31:54","date_gmt":"2016-07-12T17:31:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/2016\/07\/12\/beyond-textbooks-my-st-croix-travel-study-experience\/"},"modified":"2021-10-15T16:25:49","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T21:25:49","slug":"beyond-textbooks-my-st-croix-travel-study-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/beyond-textbooks-my-st-croix-travel-study-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Textbooks: My St. Croix Travel Study Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"StCroix\"<\/a><\/p>\n

May 11-28<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I had the amazing\u00a0opportunity to be one of 24 students on the\u00a0Winona State University travel study to the US\u00a0Virgin Island of St. Croix.\u00a0This trip focused on\u00a0Caribbean culture and history, and\u00a0how race, class, and gender continue to play\u00a0integral\u00a0roles within our society. We studied past and present acts of resistance in the face of\u00a0colonialism\u00a0and had the\u00a0privilege to learn from local professors,\u00a0businesspeople, environmentalists, and\u00a0social activists about current issues happening on the island.<\/p>\n

Before going to St. Croix, we were required to do readings\u00a0and a workbook\u00a0revolving around\u00a0Caribbean\u00a0culture,\u00a0history,\u00a0environment and\u00a0tourism. We also explored ideas like\u00a0privilege, intersectionality, and service-learning.\u00a0While on the island we wrote daily journals about our\u00a0experiences, interviewed local people for insight on current events, met with government and educational leaders, and connected our\u00a0experiences back\u00a0to the readings.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2036\"<\/p>\n

In addition to classroom time and excursions, all\u00a0students volunteered at one of four worksites:\u00a0Queen\u00a0Louise\u00a0Home for Children, The Village (an addiction\u00a0rehabilitation center), The Nature\u00a0Conservancy, and Women’s\u00a0Coalition of St. Croix. I worked at The Nature\u00a0Conservancy on\u00a0projects like planting native trees for\u00a0habitat\u00a0restoration, beach clean-ups, painting\u00a0the\u00a0visitor’s center and laying the foundation for a children’s garden. We worked Monday-Friday and had nights and weekends to explore the island. Some\u00a0of the excursions\u00a0included in this\u00a0travel study were:\u00a0snorkeling at Buck Island, a\u00a0catamaran\u00a0boat tour, sea kayaking, a\u00a0baobab tree tour, a day-long jeep\u00a0tour of the island,\u00a0relaxing at the beach, scuba-diving, shopping, trying local cuisine, plantation tours, botanical gardens, swimming in tide pools, going on turtle watches and enjoying the nightlife of downtown Christiansted.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2060\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Overall, this trip truly changed my outlook on life. I\u00a0not only learned about the culture and history of St. Croix, but learned\u00a0life lessons regarding privilege, intersectionality, travel and volunteer etiquette, and the importance of creating and maintaining lasting relationships with people who want to make a difference in their community.\u00a0St. Croix taught me a lot about myself and allowed me to gain knowledge I could never get from a textbook or lecture. I truly believe that traveling is the best way to learn about our diverse and changing world. I highly\u00a0recommend\u00a0doing a travel study\/studying abroad to any\u00a0student\u00a0looking to get the most out of their\u00a0educational\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1717\"<\/a><\/p>\n

-Danny Young<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 11-28 I had the amazing\u00a0opportunity to be one of 24 students on the\u00a0Winona State University travel study to the US\u00a0Virgin Island of St. Croix.\u00a0This trip focused on\u00a0Caribbean culture and history, and\u00a0how race, class, and gender continue to play\u00a0integral\u00a0roles within our society. We studied past and present acts of resistance in the face of\u00a0colonialism\u00a0and had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":2013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[162],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel","tag-volunteer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb2ffS-78","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/academics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}