By Victoria Durgin, Editor In Chief
Like many Susquehanna students, I came here at least partially because the allure of a global education program was enticing.
I wanted the cool semester abroad experience, the perfect way to showcase my skills and cultural competency in interviews and conversations.
Of course, COVID-19 has wrecked that for many of us.
I want to make clear that this is not a piece complaining about how upsetting it is that I cannot travel while other people are grieving far greater losses.
This is also not a piece complaining about issues outside of the Global Opportunities (GO) program’s control.
No one foresaw a global health crisis interfering with the cultural education plans of an entire university, and naturally, no one really had a plan ready to go for unexpected chaos.
I am not writing about how awful COVID-19 is per se, but I am writing about how confused, frustrated and lost I feel with the options left available to me.
The GO program has, at this point, cancelled many of the trips once slated to run this summer, and there are lingering questions about whether semester-long experiences this fall will be able to run.
In lieu of these experiences, the program has offered a virtual option, and pushed hard for current juniors like myself to complete the requirement for graduation.
As explained to me, the virtual option lasts about four weeks in May after finals have wrapped. The offerings will vary depending on student interest and partner availability, but there is a track focused specifically on completing an internship.
Naturally, this is not the GO any of us envisioned, primarily because we aren’t GOing anywhere. And naturally, there is very little Susquehanna can do about global travel restrictions.
I considered the virtual option, but was instantly concerned that devoting four weeks in May to a virtual experience would take me out of consideration at several internship possibilities to which I already applied. Further, a four-week internship, though a wonderful opportunity, didn’t seem to be an even swap for the loss of a full-time position for the course of an entire summer.
Beyond that, I don’t see how I can justify spending $1,500 (before grant money, but still) on a virtual experience solely to fulfill a graduation requirement. I, like all Susquehanna students, know that the GO experience is an additional cost, and our coming to the university is essentially us agreeing to incur those costs. But paying for a trip that includes airfare, activity and housing in a foreign place is a far different cost than paying to sit in my childhood bedroom on Zoom calls.
Again, I know that the university can only do so much here. I know that the GO requirement has been woven into university accreditation and they cannot simply waive away the requirement as if it doesn’t exist.
But that doesn’t always make this an easier pain to swallow.
I have decided to push the GO requirement off until senior year, but that too is a stress-inducing decision. What if I don’t get an internship offer for this summer, and I should have just taken the virtual option? What if I don’t like any of the options available to me in the winter? And, most of all- what if I end up just doing the virtual option in the winter after an entire semester of stressful thought about it?
I am trying my hardest to not view GO through a dissatisfied, bitter lens just because of COVID-19. It’s no one’s fault that a pandemic cancelled my plans and there are far greater sacrifices people have made than mine.