At the beginning of the summer, seven students were selected from a variety of backgrounds to go on a trip to Turkey, according to the professor who advise the trip.
“We (flew out of) Boston on May 29, and were back by June 8, so it ended up being about a ten day trip,” said Mehdi Mohaghegh, a professor in the school of Business and Management.
In total, seven students were selected based on specific criteria set by Mohaghegh.
The students had to be in good academic standing, and each of the students selected were to represent different academic disciplines and schools on campus, according to Mohaghegh.
“I tried to get a diverse group of students, all of them from different majors and I wanted to have multiple people with different expertise going over there so they would all see something different in Turkey,” Mohaghegh said.
Planning for the trip began in September of last year, when Mohaghegh took a personal trip to Turkey.
“I visited Turkey in September of last year, and while there I saw an Islamic society which is secular and the people go to work like they do in the United States,” Mohaghegh said. “Despite the fact that Turkey doesn’t have oil, they’re becoming very powerful economically.”
Trying to find a country similar to the United States but with enough differences to enrich the students participating was a key contributor to Mohaghegh selecting Turkey as the host country.
“The similarity between the United States and Turkey, especially with their maturing economy, was one of the reasons I decided the students would go over there,” Mohaghegh said.
Mohaghegh also stated “I told myself that this is a good place for our students to visit, and to see that Islam isn’t responsible for the atrocities you might see on television.”
Through the university, Mohaghegh was able to put forth a proposal to acquire funds for six students to go on the intercontinental trip.
“The university offers a program that allows a professor, like me, to write a proposal, and if the proposal is passes, we’re given $10,000 to send a handful of students to some country overseas,” Mohaghegh said.
Part of the proposal was allowing any student to go along, from any of the schools, such as from the school of humanities and English, or the school of mathematics and science, according to Mohaghegh.
The students who participated learned a great deal about other cultures and the people who live their day to day lives in conditions many Americans would find odd.
“It’s such a different culture, especially coming from a place like Norwich, where you see the same people every day,” said 20-year-old civil engineering major Amber Ferland, a junior from Vassalboro, Maine.
Ferland decided to go on the Turkey trip after spending time in Spain, as well as a desire to see more of what the world had to offer.
“Going to a big city like Istanbul, there are so many people, and I was a little worried, being a girl and heading out into this huge city full of people. But the people were friendly, and wore modern, European clothing,” Ferland said.
A concern of the two girls who participated in the trip was whether or not they would have to wear the traditional head covering Islamic women must wear, in some countries.
“Being a girl over there, I wasn’t sure beforehand if I was going to have to cover up or anything like that, but it turned out we didn’t have to because they’re a very modern culture,” Ferland said.
Going to Istanbul and seeing the differences and similarities between American culture and Turkish culture was one of the main reasons she decided to go, according to Ferland.
Brittney Schlauch, a 21-year-old senior communications major from Boca Raton, Fla., said “we got to meet different people and really get immersed into the culture of the people of Istanbul, who have more European influences than Asian, at least where we traveled.”
“I really liked Istanbul because it felt more comfortable, even though you’re an outsider, and many of the people knew English, which was surprising,” Schlauch said.
Some of the sights the students saw included the Grand Bazaar and the palace of Ataturk, the first Turkish president, according to Mohaghegh.
“We visited the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, and got to shop around for a few hours, taking in all the sights and sounds and things like that, and we visited a bunch of different historical sites, like the Blue Mosque,” Schlauch said.
The students were given every opportunity to travel around the city, and some parts of Turkey via bus, on their own and enjoying the freedom to do and see what they pleased.
“We were given a lot of freedom to do what we wanted, to really go out and explore, which was surprising, and a little scary,” Schlauch said.
“We would start really early in the morning, have breakfast as a group, go on a tour, and then walk around the city until dinner time,” Schlauch said.
The size of the city and the number of occupants was surprising for some of the students who had never visited a major foreign capital before.
“I was surprised by the sheer number of people crammed into the city, at least on the European side,” said Ferland.
The city of Istanbul is split into two main sections, the European side, which the students stayed in and toured around, and the Asian side, which the students did not go to, according to Ferland.
“Istanbul reminded me of New York City a little bit, with modern shops and fast food places and everyone dressed like it was a big, western city,” Ferland said.
Getting to know people, both in and outside of the tour group, was another reason for the trip.
“We were all different majors, all of us with different backgrounds, and it was fun to spend time with these people you didn’t think you would normally, getting to know them and just having a good time,” Schlauch said.
“Everyone we met was extremely nice, and more similar with us than we expected, because we actually met some college students, and their lives aren’t much different than ours.”
The students toured around most of Turkey, with special emphasis placed on the region of Cappadocia, in central Turkey.
“Cappadocia really stood out to us, like the size and length of mountains, the number of hermit caves, and the number of people was shocking that far out into the countryside,” Ferland said.
“We learned a lot of about the people that live (in Turkey), especially when we went out to the country, because they still live in the mountains, and hold onto their traditions from hundreds of years ago,” Schlauch said.
Seeing the massive underground city structures was a common memory for the students.
“In Cappadocia, we visited the underground city, several stories deep, with a massive central shaft, to allow air to flow down, and we saw all of the different carvings and homes in there,” Mohaghegh said.
All of the students came back enriched and pleased they had been given the opportunity to go on the trip, according to Mohaghegh.
“The students came back much more open minded, much more understanding of other cultures and civilizations and their people,” Mohaghegh said.
“It’s good for the students to see other cultures, and to see that some people that seem to us act differently, actually have great civilizations and hundreds of years of history behind them,” Mohaghegh said.
According to Schlauch, “going to Turkey opened me up to the idea of traveling the world, and going to different countries.”
“Everyone that went on the trip is thankful we were given the chance to go to a different country and experience everything it had to offer,” Schlauch said.
According to Ferland, “‘it was a very valuable experience, and (people) need to go into a place like Turkey or anywhere else with an open mind.
“It changes you to see the different cultures, to realize how much more they value life, and how much we take for granted,” Ferland said.