SEA: Unforgettable Past Review
By Zachary H (Computer Science, Macalester College) for
Sea Education Association: The Global Ocean
It was definitely worthwhile; although it was almost completely irrelevant to my computer science education (and likely career), I knew this going in and I had the time of my life. It was the perfect combination of immersion, classroom education and practical experience that I yearned for at that point in my life. It's such an adventure, but more than anything it's what you make it. Maybe I'll sail again, maybe not. But I'm glad I went out and did this while I was young.
Review Your Program
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* Overall educational experience
Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc. |
A decent bit of work, not quite as much as at Macalester but then again you have less time, as you are often in class every day from 8:30-3 or 4. To the reader: understand the nature of this program: Each class spends six weeks on shore in Woods Hole, MA (just living together and going to classes, like normal college), followed by a 5-day break, and then they board their ship and sail for six more weeks--they are on the boat almost THE ENTIRE TIME. Thus the last half of the program is completely hands-on and totally immersive. The courses listed below are the courses taken on shore, the material of which is extremely relevant on the boat, but are just that--on-shore classes. They are a totally separate beast from the ship experience. |
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* Host Country Program Administration
On-site administration of your program |
Other than my spat with Virginia, the administration was quite helpful and overall I had a great time on shore. |
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* Housing:
How satisfied were you with your living arrangements? |
Actually really liked the houses, though I did have one of the more spacious rooms. Up to 12 in each house, split between 4 bedrooms. 1 bedroom downstairs with 3 guys, 9 girls upstairs into rooms of 2, 3, and 4. One bathroom on each floor (though as I understand it was somewhat difficult for 9 girls to share one bathroom). Nice, spacious living area and nice kitchen. Our house in particular had big basement that was popular during the weekends. |
| * Food: |
Great! On shore we received grocery money, something like $40 per person per week, so we were, in that sense, in charge of our own food. On the ship the food was almost always excellent, however to be fair everything tastes better when you're using that much energy on a daily basis. |
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* Social & Cultural Integration:
How integrated did you feel with the local culture? |
Living together on shore in houses made for great bonding, and being squeezed even tighter onto the ship forged a class relationship that we will never forget. I got to know mostly everyone on board really well and consider many of them good friends. I will say that it's not very diverse, though...mostly middle-ish class white people. |
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* Health Care:
How well were health issues addressed during the program? |
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| * Safety: |
Debbie, the caretaker/groundskeeper, though a little scatter-brained, was incredibly sweet and looked after us all, checking in on us every now and then and specifically looking after our sick. Safety was a huge deal on the ship; it was easily the number one priority. |
| If you could do it all over again would you choose the same program? |
Yes
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Finances
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* Money: How easily were you able to live on a student's budget?
(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost) |
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Language
| If applicable, to what degree did your living situation aid your language acquisition? |
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Other Program Information
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* Where did you live?
Select all that apply |
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* Who did you live with?
Select all that apply |
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A Look Back
| * What did you like most about the program? |
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| * What could be improved? |
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| * What do you know now that you wish you knew before going on this program? | This program is extremely intense and challenging, but very rewarding. Be prepared, this is not a pleasure cruise. You will get drenched in rain, you will probably get seasick, and you will often be tired and hungry, but you'll be doing it all with your classmates, and every second is worth it. |
Individual Course Reviews
| Course Name/Rating: |
Oceanography |
| Course Department: | |
| Instructor: | Chuck Lea |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | A fairly challenging course, partly due to the fact that Chuck didn't do a great job of clarifying the material and he would often ramble on in class. He was d@mn knowledgeable and helpful, however, as well as hilarious, and the six-week sailing stint was one hell of a field trip! No classes like this are offered at Macalester, as far as I know, but class was mostly lecture, so I probably participated a little less |
| Credit Transfer Issues: |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Maritime Studies |
| Course Department: | |
| Instructor: | Carl Herzog |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Maritime Studies is the humanities portion of the on-shore SEA education. We studied the history of maritime culture and read some relevant texts, and the term culminated in a research paper. Carl also knows his stuff and is rather friendly and helpful one on one, however he was known to be something of a grouch in class. Also he is pretty bad about returning assignments on time. He's very energetic and funny however, making his class probably the least boring. Classes are more discussion-based, which is a nice refresher from the other two. As a humanities course, it was my least favorite, and wasn't particularly relevant once we were at sea, but these drawbacks aside it was a decent course, and I liked Carl. Also fairly challenging, and there was a great field trip mid-semester. |
| Credit Transfer Issues: |
| Course Name/Rating: |
Nautical Science |
| Course Department: | |
| Instructor: | Terry Hayward |
| Instruction Language: | English |
| Comments: | Nautical science deals primarily with navigation on the water, and so uses a lot of math--conversions, geometry, algebra. As a computer science major/math minor, naturally this was by far my favorite course as well as the one I was best at. Terry is one of (if not the) oldest faculty in terms of his employment at SEA, and thus he is also extremely knowledgeable. I learned a ton in this course--very little of which is relevant to my education at Macalester, but still very interesting material, and very applicable, if only for the six weeks at sea. Terry can be somewhat intimidating, however...several students were afraid to ask him for help. Fairly challenging, a decent amount of participation in terms of labs, which consisted of practicing navigational techniques with the nautical almanac, old sea charts, etc. |
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