Wayne State College’s Lori Utecht, a faculty member with TRiO Student Support Services, helped organize a Study Abroad trip to Greece in spring of 2017 and is planning another, similar trip in summer 2018.

Casey Simpson, a senior Wildcat, is one of the Wayne State Students who attended the trip this past spring. When she went, she said she worried about whether the people would speak enough English to be able to converse with, but nearly everyone in Greece can speak at least at a
conversational level of basic English, so it made the trip a lot more fun.

“I had an amazing time, making lifelong friendships, meeting incredible people, and seeing how beautiful the country was,” she said.

Casey and the other students on the trip had some free time in Greece when they could tour different cities as well as other countries in the nearby area. She visited France, England, Poland, Germany, and Ireland, meeting new people and gathering new experiences on a firsthand basis.

While the students were abroad, the group attended class every day for about three hours in the morning. The instructors who were teaching were learning to speak better English and also learning how to teach people
better as well. The experience is completely different from the United States because the students didn’t learn from textbooks, they learned from doing things and experiencing new things in a completely new country.

Kate Renter, another student who traveled to Greece with other Wayne State students, said that the people were incredible.

“The trip was worth every penny-when we got over there we became just like a little family,” Renter said. “We all became close with the indigenous people of Greece, and they were all so nice. It was amazing.”

One thing she enjoyed while on her independent time during the trip was seeing Pompeii, while one of the more difficult things to get a hold of while she was abroad was learning how to use a completely new alphabet and how each letter sounds.

Jess Weick, another Wildcat who attended last spring’s trip to Greece, said, “The trip helped me gain more confidence by having to meet new people and being in a country you’re not super familiar with.”

Utecht is currently working on organizing another, similar trip to Greece for May 7 to June 17, 2018. This trip will be different from the previous trip, but will still include many of the things that were on the prior trip. The main difference is it will be six weeks instead of 12, therefore cutting the cost down dramatically. This study abroad trip will be worth six credit hours.