Stepping Out 

  a student's guide to education beyond the classroom

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GUIDE FOR
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PERSPECTIVE

"The great value of my experience [in the Peace Corps] was giving me a different perspective with which to measure everything that I have subsequently done. I’m sure that a month hasn't gone by in the intervening 35 years that I haven’t thought about something that I am doing here in the states and considered how the people I worked with in Sri Lanka would think of it.   I think it helped me to be grounded in what is important."                                       
 -Lloyd Chapman, Peace Corps 1967-69
    
   
Stepping out of school is a way to gain some perspective: perspective on yourself, perspective on where you came from, and perspective on the world at large.  It gives you a chance to leave the comfort zone of our education system and experience something different.  Maybe you will be confused, maybe you will be rattled, maybe you will be shocked, maybe you will be amazed, maybe you will be confronted.  In the end you will walk away having had the opportunity to look at life through a new lens, one different from the lens of traditional education.

sun through fingertips

"For a long time I wondered what the culture of Australia was; at the time I thought we were just a jumble of all cultures from around the world.  It became clear to me that the only way to know something or see Australia for what it is, was to leave the country, study, and travel.  Through this I better understand where I live now." -James Evans, 23 yr old Australian

"Travel plays a role in my responsibility as an American and as a citizen of the world.  It teaches me that my understanding of society does not hold true in other places, and enlightens me to perspectives justly critical of my own.  Travel provides me with insights into other's culture and consequentially insights into my own. "  -Kyle Dickman, 23 yr old American