Ever heard of the Global Passport Program? Well incoming St. John’s freshmen, if you want to make your freshman year extra memorable, I strongly urge you, actually I beg you, to consider taking part in the Global Passport Program.
St. John’s has a very unique study abroad opportunity for freshman, known as GPP, that allows you to travel to either Rome, Italy or Paris, France for a week with one of your classes at the end of the semester. You get to stay on an actual SJU campus abroad to get a feel for what a semester of study abroad is like. I recently travelled to Rome with my “Discover New York: Urban Design” class, taught by Professor Douglas Cantelmo, and I could not have had a better, more fulfilling week in the Eternal City. Here are just some of the many benefits of taking part in the Global Passport Program at SJU!
Compared to what a normal trip to Europe would cost, this is an incredible deal. If you start saving up soon then you’ll have extra spending money to splurge on some cute souvenirs and gifts to bring back home.
Nothing brings people together like time away from home, especially in a foreign country. You experience things that you just can’t back home and get to see these people in a new environment, in which you get to learn more about each other than you would in a classroom. You’ll hold onto the memories forever and create long lasting friendships. You will become a little family, and families stick together.
From my experience, Rome is very different from New York culture. The food, fashion, language, attitudes, weather, nightlife and everything else you can think of differ somehow. It allows you to see things from a new perspective and be more knowledgeable on that new culture.
On the trip, you get to go on daily trips with your class and see beautiful, historic sights like the Pantheon, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Roman Forum, St. Peter’s Basilica and Piazza Venezia, just to name a few from the Rome excursion. Seeing these monuments in person, compared to a computer screen, is an incredible, eye opening feeling that makes you want to run all over the city and see more.
Memories made on trips like these are like no other. I have been back from my GPP trip to Rome for only a couple weeks and cannot stop replaying the best memories in my head and talking to people from my class about it. My GPP trip to Rome has absolutely been my favorite memory of my freshman year in college and I can only hope other people will get to experience a trip similar to mine and hold the good times dearly to their heart.
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