Semester

A Semester in Florence

by Phil Miskovic ’08 Ciao from Firenze, the city of fine wine, gourmet food, and artistic masterpieces. My semester abroad began in mid August with a three day trip to Rome touring some of the famous sights, the Coliseum, Trevi Fountain, and the Vatican to name just a few.  Next came orientation in Lido di Camaiore, a small town on the coast of northern Tuscany.  Our time was spent in a three-hour, daily intensive language course, followed by relaxing on the private beaches, sipping cappuccini in small trattorie, and visiting nearby Pisa with its leaning tower; Lucca, the birthplace of […]

Other experiences

A Hampden-Sydney Man in Tiajuana

by Bryan Hicks ’06 You can do anything with a degree from Hampden-Sydney College.  That is only partially true; a Hampden-Sydney Man can do anything.  Along with eleven high school students and five other adults, I spent a week in Tijuana, Mexico, at the end of last July. During this week, we built a house and a retaining wall, and we also spent two of the days working at a local orphanage.  Working in the orphanage gave us the opportunity not only to work with the kids in the orphanage but also in the surrounding community.  The orphanage system in […]

Academic Year, May Term, Semester, Summer

Study Abroad 2003-2004

During the 2003-2004 academic year, 72 Hampden-Sydney students studied abroad in 11 different countries. The length of study ran from a full academic year to May Term courses and ranged from Europe to Central America to Australia and New Zealand. On September 2, many of the participants gathered in the Parents & Friends Lounge and several shared stories of their adventures. G. W. Zuban ’06 of Chesterfield, VA, studied at University of St. Andrews, Scotland, for the Spring Semester 2004. G.W. chose St. Andrews because of its solid academic reputation and it because is substantially larger than Hampden-Sydney College but […]

Academic Year

Some Sacred and Profane Memories – A Year at Oxford

Text of a Speech Delivered on Sept. 2, 2004, Parents & Friends Lounge by Jordan H. Gaul, IV ’05 In the words of the old Sammy Cahn song, “It’s nice to go travelin’, but it’s oh, so nice to come home.”  It’s great to be back at Hampden-Sydney, and I’d like to tell you some of my general impressions about the value of a foreign study program. I grew up on the banks of the Brandywine River, in Downingtown, Pennsylvania – about an hour’s drive outside of Philadelphia.  Downingtown is located someplace in that indefinite swath of farmland where the […]

Summer

Virginia Program at Oxford 2005

by Corey Van Vlymen ’08 photographs by: Morgan Roach, Sweet Briar College, class of ’07 This summer, three other students from Hampden-Sydney and I participated in the Virginia Program at Oxford University in England.  Stephen English, Peter Gilman, Jonathan Miyashiro, and I traveled to England in June for the six-week study abroad program. There, we were joined by students from five other Virginia colleges: Mary Baldwin, Roanoke, Sweet Briar, Virginia Military Institute, and Washington & Lee.  The program is organized by a team of advisers (one from each of the participating colleges) and is one of the longest established American […]

Summer

Virginia Program at Oxford 2004

by Wesley Sholtes ’05 (left to right – Brandon Chiesa ’05. J.B. Billings ’05, Wesley Sholtes ’05 at Kings Collge) This year’s Virginia Program at Oxford, which brought together 32 students from six small schools in Virginia, including Hampden-Sydney, Sweetbriar, Mary Baldwin, VMI, Washington & Lee, and Roanoke, proved an extremely formative experience for seven Hampden-Sydney students this summer. Through the rigorous tutorial-style system employed by the professors involved in this six- week program at St. Anne’s College, students had the opportunity to master many of the skills that Hampden-Sydney’s own liberal arts education emphasizes, including those of critical thinking, oral […]

May Term

May Term 2004 in Costa Rica

By Monti Mercer ’06Dr. M. Carolina Y?er, Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, parted from her family for two and half weeks to take eleven Hampden-Sydney men to Costa Rica for tropical biology research.  We were able to perform studies on plants and animals found at three biological stations located around the country, each with its own tropical forest genre.  The stations are run by the Organizations for Tropical Studies (OTS), a non-profit consortium that focuses on undergraduate and graduate level education in tropical biology.   Six days were spent on campus preparing for all the research that would be performed […]

Semester

Spring Semester 2004 Abroad At St. Andrews

by G. W. Zuban ’05 As the new school year opens, I would like to share some of my experiences of last semester spent at the University of St. Andrews in beautiful St. Andrews, Scotland.  As a brief history of the University, it was founded in the early fifteenth century to keep the sons of Scottish nobles from being captured by the English during wartime. In modern times, the University is in the middle of St. Andrews, flanked by the world famous home golf course and surrounded by the North Sea.  While the town is modern, it is also rife […]

Academic Year

Cead Mile Failte from Scotland

A Year in Scotland by Forrest W. Smith ’05 (Forrest climbing Ben Lomond) Cead Mile Failte This is a Gaelic greeting that means one hundred thousand welcomes. That’s just what you get when you’re in Scotland. Everything about this country is beautiful, the people, culture, and landscape. When I first arrived in Edinburgh it was the last day of the Edinburgh festival. IFSA Butler had put us in the Roxburgh Hotel, which is a four star hotel. My room happened to be in the older building, and had a very mid 1900s feel to it. Suffice it to say that […]

Semester

“Shoe Soles Worn Thin…”

A Message from Dacre Knight ’05 Dated September 16, 2003Greetings to Hampden-Sydney,   I am writing to you from Edinburgh, Scotland, on the eve of beginning a semester of study at St. Andrews.  I am with a group of students, mostly from Washington & Lee, the host university for this program.  We are staying at St. Calm’s International House.  Though it sounds like a hostel, it’s actually very comfortable: an old Georgian house with two people to a room, bathroom, free internet, and breakfast from 7-9 AM. We arrived here yesterday from York where we stayed in another old Georgian […]