Global College
Programs and Reviews

At LIU Global, I was exposed to the intrinsic beauty of South Africa through their Durban Center in the fall of 2010. Initially I made the decision to go to South Africa because I had become very attached to this giant majestic monster, the ocean. When preparing to leave for Durban I spent most of my time: applying for my visa, packing swimsuits, and working to save enough money to buy a surf board upon arrival. Once in the country I was immediately shocked with the amount of new luxury cars in the airport parking lot. I was not expecting to ride home on an elephant, but I had figured: this is Africa, I most likely will not be getting a ride to my new home in a Mercedes.

The most important thing I would note about South Africa is its wealth. South Africa has gold, diamonds, oil and other rich natural resources. These resources, along with the 'misappropriation' in government funds make some South African's extremely well off, and more South Africans extremely poor. But as I have come to learn in life wealth is not solely about money, and this is where South Africa holds most of its riches, in culture. South Africa is a country with 11 official languages, and many different cultures within what was titled by Nelson Mandela 'The Rainbow Nation'. This diversity and South Africa's status as one of the continents most quickly developing nation, gives the traveling student ample learning opportunities.

The other day in one of my classes at the LIU Global, Brooklyn campus I was reminded that there are two main different types of cultures: doing and being. America is a good example of a doing culture, where we measure our successes in life on how much we accomplish. South Africa is very much a being culture. I don't exactly know how one best prepares for this aspect of culture shock, but it is a good thing to think about before you choose where to go, and especially before you end up in your location of study. This difference between doing and being had the biggest significance in an independent study I pursued in South Africa titled Point and Shoot. The program was a youth empowerment through photography program that looked to increase the pathways of communication within youth in a public and private school in Durban. What being culture meant to this program was inconsistency in students time management and when they decided to approach various assignments on the lesson plan, in addition to how much time they decided to take completing them. In a being culture it is interesting to investigate how much you will be able to quantifiabl-ly get done in relation to how much you will be able to qualitatively complete.

Lastly, as much as you can break down and dismantle as many Africa stereotypes you can before you arrive in South Africa. Most likely friends and family will urge you to study abroad in 'safer' locations, such as England or Australia. Don't believe everything you read or are told. Bad things can happen anywhere, and while they might be more prevalent or recorded more in South Africa, I lived there for 10 months and never experienced direct assault or crime of any type. Like anywhere you travel, one must just be aware and street smart. Talk to the locals at campus, gather their ideas on what is safe and what isn't. Some things I have learned from experience are: don't go out alone after dark (there is no such thing as safety in numbers at nightfall), don't flaunt your monetary possessions, do trust in the good nature of humans, don't let fear consume you. LIU Global is a program that I would encourage all students interested in study abroad to look into: http://www.liu.edu/Global.aspx. Additionally, if you are ever presented with the option of going to South Africa, never doubt the decision to go for a minute.