For most students, summer is just a time to relax. But for others, this summer was more than just a time to hang out on a beach — it was life changing.

Whether traveling halfway across the globe or staying closer to home, students from Syracuse University trekked to some exciting and exotic places during the summer break.

LONDON

While watching the London Olympics on TV, Kylee Haggerty could say something that few other people outside England could: She had been at those stadiums right before the games began.

Haggerty, a junior sports management major, took an SPM 400 class last spring called “Olympic Odyssey.” The course explored the history of the Olympic games, and after the class finished, students had the chance to travel to various Olympic sites. She was one of 15 students who signed on for the European trip, which went from May 15 until June 1.

The students traveled to London for sightseeing and a tour around the new Olympic stadiums. Their next stop was in Paris for a quick look at what was left of the Olympic sites from the 1900 and 1924 games.

They also visited Lausanne, Switzerland, home of the International Olympic Committee. There, Haggerty and the rest of the group were given the rare chance to have a meeting with an IOC executive and visit the Olympic museum. The group of SU students was only one of three college groups to meet with the IOC, and the only group from the U.S. to do so.

“It’s been my dream to go to the IOC since high school,” Haggerty said. “It was cool to accomplish that.”

The last stop on the trip was in Greece, where the Olympics began. They spent time in Olympia, where the ancient Greek Olympics took place, and Athens, home of the 2004 Olympics.

Said Haggerty: “It was just a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

MUMBAI, INDIA

Spending the summer in Hollywood is a dream for film students, but a few spent the summer in Bollywood — the colorful and lively film capital of India — instead.

Danielle Skipper, a junior television, radio and film major, knew she wanted an internship for the summer, but never dreamed she’d end up with one on the other side of the world.

After seeing a flyer for the Bollywood Snapshots internship program, she met with the head of the program. On May 18, Skipper and eight other SU students flew into Mumbai, India, to begin their program.

The students spent a week and a half taking classes at Whistling Woods International, a film school in Film City, the Mumbai equivalent of Hollywood. The two daily classes were designed to teach the American students about Bollywood, covering everything from yoga to Bollywood dancing, and the importance of music in Indian films.

Once Skipper and the rest of the group finished taking classes, she interned at an Indian TV production company called Carving Dreams Entertainment, where she did research and pre-production work for reality TV shows.

She traveled with her classmates to New Delhi, India, for a few days to relax and take in what the rest of India had to offer. They also went to Agra, India, and visited the Taj Mahal.

“They live differently than we do. You gain this whole different perspective on different ways of living,” Skipper said. “I can’t wait to go back and visit.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Picnics are a summer staple, but it isn’t often that you get to meet the President of the United States at one.

Vincent Fang, who spent the summer in Washington, D.C. at an internship with the White House Initiative on Asian American and Pacific Islanders, was one of the lucky few who got to shake President Barack Obama’s hand at the Congressional White House picnic.

Fang, a senior political science and policy studies major, had time to prepare himself for his summer internship. In the spring, he had an internship in Washington, D.C. with the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. His mentor there helped him get the summer internship with the White House Initiative.

Fang spent his first few weeks of summer in New York City, taking a break from the grind of working in Washington, D.C. He returned to the nation’s capital in early June to begin his eight-week internship with the White House Initiative.

“It was the quickest eight weeks of my life,” Fang said. “There was never really a normal day.”

Over the course of the summer, Fang worked on a variety of projects, from writing newsletters to send out to senior staff members, to putting together a Regional Action Summit on Asian-American issues in Columbus, Ohio and a whole lot of other work in between.

“The whole ‘9 to 5’ thing was a myth for us,” Fang said. “We worked from 9 until whenever we got our job done.”

There are benefits to spending a summer in Washington, D.C, even if you don’t have a lot of down time, Fang said. He watched three different fireworks shows from Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia, on a hill behind his apartment on the Fourth of July. He got a rare tour of the West Wing and, of course, met the president.

“There are no words to describe it,” said Fang, who was still in amazement long after his encounter with the president.

Fang knows that all the work he put into the internship was worth it; he was doing work that was making a difference in people’s lives.

“Being in D.C. for so long, you forget that people have real-life issues,” Fang said. “(The White House Initiative) listens to the community and brings it back to the government, so it was really great.”

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Dubai, a rapidly growing Middle-Eastern city, is a dream for any engineering student. One of the city’s main features is the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.

Since his freshman year, Scott Anthes, a senior civil engineering major, prepared himself for a summer internship in Dubai. After being accepted into the civil engineering internship this summer, Anthes finally had the chance to go.

“They tell all the incoming civil engineers about it,” Anthes said. “It was one of the main reasons I decided to come to Syracuse in the first place. I’ve been working towards it for quite a few years.”

Anthes was one of six civil engineering students selected for the exclusive internship with Dubai Contracting Company, which lasted from May 23 to June 19.

For Anthes, the most unexpected part of Dubai was the mix of cultures brought in by the booming metropolis.

“It was a really cool mix of people,” Anthes said. “We liked to compare it to what the United States might have been like in the early 1900s when everyone was coming over.”

Despite weather that hit 120 degrees a few times, Anthes kept cool by visiting the Dubai Mall, the world’s largest mall. They also went on a desert safari, rode camels and visited some of Dubai’s nicest and most extravagant hotels.

The internship began with a few days of lectures about the company, but students also got to try more hands-on activities, including building a block wall to see what building is like from a worker’s perspective. Anthes said that they were able to help the company do tasks, such as assess the risk of moving a sewer line.

“They’re doing projects we wouldn’t even think of attempting here in America,” Anthes said. “It’s just a really exciting opportunity for an engineer.”

Published on August 27, 2012 at 1:39 am

Contact Anna: amhider@syr.edu