While most first-years began their Tufts education last fall in classrooms on the Hill, 23 Civic Semester fellows boarded flights to Peru or Thailand instead. These students chose to study abroad during their first semester of college, joining an immersive learning program through the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
Civic Semester is “what brought me to Tufts,” Vorleak Hak, a first-year in the Thailand program, said. “It was the pulling point for me.”
Civic Semester students take Tufts courses while engaging in hands-on work with local on-site community organizations. The program encourages students to develop their civic identity, according to Jessye Crowe-Rothstein, a senior program manager at Tisch College who has worked with Civic Semester since its inception in 2019.
“I hope that students who participate in Civic Semester … build community and connections with others,” Crowe-Rothstein wrote in an email to the Daily. “I hope they gain some real-world experience to guide their academics and interests, a curiosity and respect for other cultures, a better understanding of societal issues and challenges as well as concrete examples of how communities can work towards solving them, and a stronger sense of personal agency.”
The summer before matriculation, participants take virtual courses designed to prepare them for the experience and arrive early to campus for program orientation. They still take part in college-wide pre-orientation and orientation programs before flying out together to program sites. In fall 2024, 11 students studied in the city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, and 12 students went to the rural town of Urubamba in the Sacred Valley of Peru.
“[I knew] I would be missing out on the semester on campus, but I knew that I would be getting really, really close with those people who I went to Peru with,” first-year Cameron Sasser said.
The first weeks of the semester are spent living together in a rental, followed by homestays. Tisch College partners with the travel provider Where There Be Dragons to facilitate partnerships with local host families and organizations. Dragons staff stay on site to advise students throughout the program, while students attend virtual classes with Tufts-affiliated professors, in-person language lessons with local teachers and service learning placements with community organizations.
“Where There Be Dragons is an amazing organization … they really changed the ways that I see traveling and tourism,” Ana Luísa Ribeiro da Silva, a first-year in the Peru program, said.
For her service learning placement, Ribeiro da Silva worked with Valley Camp Peru, an outdoor education non-governmental organization that runs summer camps for local youth.
“The biggest takeaway was more learning about myself,” she said. “I was interested in education [careers], but I was apprehensive on going to traditional education, and I actually figured out [that] I want to explore more of these non-traditional parts, more experiential and socio-emotional [parts] of education.”
Sasser did his placement at the Niños Del Arco Iris Foundation. “[It’s] like a school aimed at providing health care, nutritional care,” he said, “doing a lot of things outside of the realm of a normal school, primarily for low-income families.”
In Thailand, Hak volunteered for Harmony, an eco-lodge in Huai Lan. She worked with local handicrafts instructors to develop workshops that promoted their culture and sustainable ways to tourists. Hak emphasized the sense of cultural humility that the program brought.
“Since I’m from Cambodia, I think that I know a lot about Thailand … I know very much [less] … than I think that I know,” she said.
Michela Rowland, another first-year in the Thailand program, worked with the organic farmers’ collaborative Maetha.
“We would do day-to-day farm work, like weeding and taking the water buffalo around,” Rowland said.
The experience complemented their interest in sustainable food systems. “We’d planted these cabbages in October … and then in November, right before we had to leave, we harvested a cabbage and cooked it up for lunch together,” they said. “It was really cool to see that cycle.”
A highlight of the service learning placement was the window into local perspectives, Sasser said, whether it was through playing basketball with school pupils or chatting with coworkers in Spanish.
The homestay further pushed students to communicate across language barriers.
“Civic Semester forces us to learn to … open ourselves up also to people who might not speak the same language as us, and also to understand each other in ways that [we] wouldn’t have if [we] were to speak the same language,” Hak said.
Sasser, who grew up an only child, remarked on his experience living with 7- and 9-year-old host brothers.
“It was a very big change from a very quiet household to a very not quiet household, but it was amazing,” he said. “They gave me, like, 10,000 drawings, and I plan on hanging them in my dorm somewhere.”
Thailand participants highlighted the interconnectedness of the host community in Huai Lan, the village an hour outside Chiang Mai where students had homestays.
“The other moms … were really kind as well,” Hak said. “It feels like I do not only have one mom, but I have a whole community of mothers coming together. I know that if I go to their house and ask for help … they would also treat me as their own child.”
Rowland felt a cultural shift in Thailand due to the emphasis on generosity toward others instead of focusing on oneself and one’s own needs.
“People show up unannounced all the time. I think that’s so different from what I’m used to, coming from a very suburban area where people are in their own little bubble,” they said. “That was really beautiful to me, because everyone was very interdependent, and it felt like a really large family.”
The fall 2024 Civic Semester fellows hail from various parts of the United States and internationally from Costa Rica, Kenya, Brazil, Cambodia and beyond. Some have attended international schools or travel-based programs, while for others, Civic Semester is their first time living in a new country.
“We’re there for different reasons, but yet they’re similar,” Ribeiro da Silva said.
For her, one motivation was to become more in touch with Latin American culture in Peru.
“I’m from Brazil, and Brazil is a very culturally isolated country, so we don’t get to have that cultural exchange with other Latin American countries that speak Spanish,” Ribeiro da Silva said. “I wanted to hear more [about] what it’s like being South American.”
Living together in the program house, the Civic Semester students split household responsibilities, such as cooking for everyone, and learned to navigate group dynamics.
“Being within a small group for that period of time … conflicts are bound to come up,” Sasser added. “It does a lot of teaching you about … how to communicate for those things.”
The Dragons field staff supported students through this transition.
“They’re basically Mom and Dad,” Ribeiro da Silva said. “Juan Diego and Connie, [Dragons field staff members], … are people that I still carry in my heart, and I hope I see them someday.”
Although they have only a few months abroad together, the Civic Semester network continues afterward.
“We know that the transition back to campus in January is a big concern for students and want to do whatever we can to support them,” Crowe-Rothstein, the senior program manager, wrote. “We have programming the weekend after classes start to support the cohort with their transition to campus, including many opportunities to meet Civic Semester alumni and other [Tisch College] students, learn about ways to get involved on campus, and more.”
For future participants — applications are now open for the Class of 2029 — the fellows have plenty of advice.
“Embrace being in an unfamiliar setting, and do unfamiliar things,” Sasser said.
“Go with an open heart and open mind to reflect,” Ribeiro da Silva said.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help,” Hak said.
“I was really aware of how I was changing while I was there. … That made me reflect a lot when I got back … to go away from a place and then come back a different person,” Rowland said. “Have that open-mindedness: that you will also be changed and you will also change the place you’re in.”
