Students Travel to Antarctica

By Andy Beaudoin on January 18, 2013


It was the best experience of her life. It was awe-inspiring, exciting, life-changing, like nothing she had ever seen or done before, and for whatever reason, the reality of her recent two-week-long study abroad trip to Antarctica still hadn’t set in.

“It was all very surreal,” MSU junior, Maggie Moore, said in an interview with Uloop News. “I mean, you’re just sitting there in awe, looking at the scenery, and you’re two feet away from a penguin—when does that ever happen?”

Moore, along with 14 other students and two lead professors, spent their winter break on an Antarctic expedition to study fisheries, wildlife and geology. The program, offered through Michigan State University’s Office of Study Abroad, is perhaps one of the rarest and most interesting opportunities open for students. Moore signed up for the trip this last July.

“Preparation was confusing,” she said. “There were a few meetings and lectures before-hand, and they try to tell you what Antarctica is going to be like, but in reality, none of us really knew what to expect.”

To start, the group flew to Ushuaia, Argentina (the southernmost city in the world) where they spent a few days hiking the Andes. Afterwords, they boarded a ship with 80 other passengers, had no cell phone service or internet access, and made their way towards the icy continent.

“There are a lot of mountains,” Moore said. “And more ice than usual—the winter ice hadn’t melted yet. We also saw some seals, and tons of penguins. There would be thousands and thousands of penguins just in one colony.”

Antarctica is not completely overrun by penguins, however. Different countries own parts of the icy continent, but only researchers are allowed to live in the scientific bases that are stationed there. Aside from that, Antarctica only sees humans via cruise ships and various expeditions. While many people go to the continent and have an amazing time, Dr. Jen Owen, one of the professors who traveled and taught the students, believes she had an even better experience.

“Not only do I get to go and experience Antarctica myself, but I get to experience it through the eyes of students,” Owen said. “And seriously, no one is unhappy in Antarctica. Everyone’s enthusiastic and you get to share that enthusiasm. It’s experiential learning at its best.”

What made it so interesting to teach the students was the accessibility of wildlife.

“You take advantage of what’s right in front of you, so you may see very unique behavioral things that animals are doing,” she said. “Like on a hot day, you’ll see penguins just laying flat out. Their feet and their bill are exposed—they look like they’re dead. What they’re doing is trying to get rid of as much heat as possible by exposing all their extremities.”

Owen, Moore and the crew went on several excursions each day, making various observations on the wildlife and doing scientific reports. It wasn’t all work though.

“We went swimming,” she said. “There’s this place called Deception Island and it looks sort of like an inverted mountain filled with water. The water is geothermic, but it’s still one degree below Celsius. I was totally for it though—when will you say you swam in Antarctica ever again? ” 

After the Antarctic explorations, the group was dropped off at the Falkland islands for a week to do few more studies. Moore mentioned that the islands didn’t quite compare.

“Honestly, not as cool as Antarctica,” she said.

Dr. Owen mentioned that they’ve run into this problem before.

“They’re so flabbergasted by Antarctica that everything pales in comparison,” Owen said. “You need to maintain that level of enthusiasm and point out all these amazing attributes of the other places, so it’s a challenge. What we want most of all is to have students more cognizant of their surroundings now that they have really immersed themselves in a completely different environment.”

After their stay in the Falklands, they returned to Michigan the day before the start of the spring semester. Moore is still trying to process the experience.

“Seriously, it changed my life,” she said. “I think it has to do with isolation. You reflect on who you are.”

She wasn’t completely alone, however. The vessel held 80 other passengers from around the world—they were the only people she saw for two weeks.

“It puts things into perspective,” Moore said. “There’s so much out there and not just what’s at MSU.”

While MSU may be a small part of the world, the university offers over 275 programs in countries and continents all over the world, all of which have opportunities as enriching as Moore’s.

“It was the best experience of my life,” she said. “I would definitely do it again.”

 

 

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