Global Leadership Summer Study Abroad: Prague, Czech Republic

I think I grew so much. I had the chance to take a break in my life and meditate about my role in my city, my country and the world. I realized that I was a global citizen and I had responsibilities. I was able to combine two things that I loved and that I never thought I could mix like design and social service. GLP helped me to think outside the box and go further, to research and learn from amazing human beings and to share what I knew with others. If you want to spend a summer like no other, apply asap! You won't regret it!

Highlights: In the academic area we had the Philosophers debate where we had to chose our favorite and study him so we would be able to answer questions like him/her (I was Plato). We even made costumes. We had some extra activities like a visit to Terezin (a concentration camp), we went to the Communism museum, and did social service in a town nearby. I also loved the presentation of the projects in our social entrepreneurship class. It was just amazing to see how my project and my friend's projects develop during the program and how well prepared we were to present it in front of others. In other aspects, I'm so glad I had the chance to meet wonderful friends and got to know a little bit more about their culture. I can say I have a house waiting for me in the Czech Republic, Australia, Colombia, Panama, Bulgaria and more!

• Morning: My first class started at 11:15 (which was perfect because I'm not a morning person). The school was 15 minutes away from the dorms, but I was also able to take the tram which took 2 minutes to get to the school. The Philosophies of Leadership class was the perfect way to start the day. We talked about the lecture of the day, what we didn't understand, what was the author thinking when he/she wrote the article, and how can we apply it to the present. We were a big group (around 40 from around the world) but we split into different groups so were able to share our thoughts. We were able to express ourselves in a creative way (writing questions, drawing, writing poems etc).
• Afternoon: Sometimes I went back to the dorm to eat something, other days I just walked around with my friends and looked for a restaurant. Prague is really cheap in comparison to other European cities and they have all kinds of food from vegetarian to Italian to typical Czech food. After lunch, I went back to my social entrepreneurship class where we were focusing on a social project. We had the chance to share our dreams and our hopes of how we can change the world. We helped each other on our personal projects. I was out of class around 6 p.m. and at that time I ran directly to Charles Bridge and to the the Old Town. There's so much life and history in every corner of Prague that you can't stay in one place. If you're into art I would definitely recommend you spend some time in the Alphonse Mucha's Museum.
• Evening: I was back at the dorms around 9 p.m. and that's when I started my homework (as I said before, I'm not a morning person and I can focus better at night). Sometimes I used to study in the common room with my friends, especially when the lecture of the day was difficult. On the weekends we went out to clubs or bars. Prague is also the perfect city to go party or you can always have drink and listen to jazz music.

Leadership exCHANGe is going into its 14th year and we just partnered with the Sullivan Foundation and added Costa Rica to our list of programs for this year. Not only can you gain leadership and social entrepreneurship skills in the Panama program, but you can stay for 4 more weeks in Costa Rica and apply those skills you learned in the classroom to work on community based projects. Great experiential learning in a beautiful country!

Something that makes our program unique is the blend of students from so many different countries. I hope that the future of the study abroad industry continues to push for this type of interactive immersion. More and more students are finding the value in international programs and are taking the opportunity to travel and live in another country. I think that in the next 10 years the percentage of students that study abroad will continue to increase and that students will seek out programs that are more intentional about integrating them into the culture of the place where they are studying. In my opinion you cannot afford not to study abroad. It is an incredible investment in your future and will help shape your global perspective.