Not Your Average Semester Abroad

An International Politics major and a junior from Georgetown University in Qatar, Hamza Iqbal, was on a mission to further challenge himself and satisfy his long-lasting interest in different cultures and people from all walks of life when he decided against the Georgetown-approved study abroad programs and instead set off on a 100-day voyage to take a Semester at Sea (SAS).

Offered by the University of Virginia, with visiting faculty members from other American universities, the SAS program is run on a 590-foot cruise ship called the MV Explorer. Hamza’s spring semester voyage included stops at 15 cities in 12 countries including USA, Mexico, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Burma, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Namibia, Morocco, United Kingdom, where the students aboard the ship practiced hands-on field experience related to their courses of study.

“The SAS program focuses on the breadth rather than the depth of exposure to foreign cultures as in a conventional study abroad experience. Every country leaves me with a list of things I want to research further when I get back to campus. All of this mental-bookmarking is greatly inspired by the courses I’m taking on aboard the ship, where we discuss countries with case studies specific to our fields of study,” said Iqbal.  

“This has been such a rewarding experience in so many ways – I’ve even ended up on prime time television in Japan, but my favorite experience so far was our visit to the second oldest race course in the world, Champ de Mars in Port Louis, Mauritius, which happened to coincide with the time I presented at the MESSA conference in Doha over video,” said Iqbal, commenting on his SAS experience.  

During his studies at SAS, Hamza took courses in Communications, Human Rights and World Politics.

“Waking up in a different country almost every other week, and interacting with a seemingly far-off culture only to identify its similarities with my own and has given me a renewed sense self, and how I place myself in the world. The field experiences I’ve had often take me back to GU-Q Professor Reza Pirbhai’s World History class that focused on the interactions of civilizations, peoples, cultures, religions and worldviews, that have provided me with an essential backdrop for this experience,” he concluded.

Hamza’s SAS spring semester will conclude on April 29, disembarking in the United Kingdom.