Advice for everyone going on Semester at Sea

• If you get lots of e-mail, have someone monitor your main e-mail account and forward important ones to a temporary one that is web accessible (like Hotmail). Perhaps pick a less popular e-mail account than Hotmail; many people sat waiting for a long time just to see their in-box!
• Tell your friends not to send frequent, long messages because it is hard to focus on complex e-mails while being rushed in an Internet cafe. These cafes are often extremely crowded and smoky places, with long waiting lines. Often the computers crash and require reboots. The dependable ones are not without difficulties of their own--if you think the Internet is slow in the U.S., you should try connections around the world!
• Tell your closest friends to send paper mail using the deadlines suggested by the Institute for Shipboard Education. Even with e-mails, you will treasure your paper letters from friends, and seeing other students with loads of paper mail will be depressing.
• Take a laptop computer with you so you aren't dependent on the lab, and you are relatively immune to the viruses that pop up at the wrong times. Make sure you have a laptop that is new enough to be useful but old enough to not be a target for theft. Use a password lock that prevents a person from using it.
• Don't take your best clothes for everyday use. Acidic soot from the smokestack collects on things like handrailings, and if you don't brush it all off before washing clothes, it will burn holes into your clothes.
• While you're at it, don't lean on handrailings! Ok, lean on them after brushing them off first. See above regarding soot!
• In a fall voyage, take some candy or other treats for childrens' trick-or-treating.
• Buy a Semester at Sea compass/keychain in the ship's store early on. I used it so much, and it helped keep us from getting lost.
• Do EVERYTHING you can to find someone in as many countries as you can who can take you to their home! I can't tell you how much better it is to have someone show you what life is really like rather than to wander around a strange city much like a tourist, and shopping among strangers. In Viet Nam and Rome, we had a great time meeting these locals and seeing how they really lived/worked. Also, you might keep your ears open for other faculty who have visited those places before, and perhaps link up with them.
• Homestays are wonderful, inexpensive field projects. Try one early on and you won't regret it!
• University visits are fabulous. You can learn so much by meeting your peers in other countries.
• Don't become obsessed with shopping. It would be better for both your back and your mind to return with more knowledge and fewer things. If you do shop, you should find out from people where to buy the things you want. We found the following as best buys:
  • Leather jackets from Turkey and Italy
  • Carpets from Turkey and Morocco
  • Tailored suits and dresses from Vietnam
  • Silk from Vietnam and India
  • Batiks (hand-dyed shirts, tablecloths, etc.) from Malaysia (Sam's Batiks: good balance of the best prices and best stuff)
• If you're going to try to do what I did and develop a web site to document the trip while you go, make sure you take a floppy disk containing an FTP program with you to cybercafes and then carry your files. The overwhelming majority of cybercafes do not have an FTP program already installed but most have floppy drives and allow you to install FTP. It's horrible to have to download FTP for your first 15 minutes of your limited time. Fortunately, FTP (file transfer protocol) has priority over HTTP (web protocol), so your file transfers will complete quickly while everyone still sits waiting for their e-mails.
• You will be asked to participate in adoption of a "family" to help give students and adults a sort of "home" on the ship. This is a great experience for both; don't take it lightly. We adopted 4 great kids at first and then expanded our "family" to about 12 great kids. Plan to dine together weekly or semi-weekly; it will ease homesickness for both students and adults.
• For weeks after the voyage, you will have trouble letting go of your new friends for 3.5 months. This is why I'm still updating this site and we've been back home for over two weeks.