Two students at the university aren’t spending their semester at Appalachian, or abroad in any traditional sense.
Instead, they’re sailing around the Atlantic Ocean, through the Semester at Sea program.

Junior marketing major Melissa Reavis and senior political science major John Bundy are participating in the program. They’ll travel to 16 different countries while taking college courses.

Reavis said she first heard about the trip on Appalachian’s study abroad website.

“I was automatically interested because it has been my dream to travel around the world,” Reavis said.

Bundy said he was “cherishing every day that I spend at sea.”

“I am most looking forward to seeing how I have changed and developed as a global citizen when I return home and reflect on what I have been a part of,” Bundy said.

For each student, the best parts of the trip have varied.

“The highlight of my trip so far was meeting an Indian princess in London, England,” Reavis said. “We became really close and I’ll be going to visit her in Delhi, India in the near future.”

For Bundy, the highlights have been broad: simply the people he’s met and the experiences he’s had.

“I will recommend Semester at Sea as highly as anything that I have been a part of in my life, to anyone that I speak with,” he said. “This experience is amazing and what you get the chance to do as a student on SAS is top notch.”

Around 500 students participate in Semester at Sea each semester, and 75 courses are offered through the program, Communications Coordinator Kelly Lewis said.

This year, there are students representing 10 different countries on the trip, Lewis said.

Story: CHELSEY FISHER, News Editor