Pictured from left to right: Dr. Lesley Sneed,CE Christopher Becker,CE Nicholas Moran,CE Jacqueline Miller,CE Brandon Moore,ArchE & CE Emily Anthony,GeoE
and gondola rides to visits to big game reserves and outdoor craft markets. The experiential learning course also gave students a chance to see how political, economic, social, cultural and technical forces in other countries can shape their disciplines, not to mention daily life. In Cape Town, the students visited one of the main reservoirs in a drought-starved city that is on target to run out of water by early June, if not sooner. When that happens, the municipal water supply will be shut off except for essential services, such as hospitals and public collection points overseen by armed guards. “It’s not about sitting in a classroom,” Sneed says. “It was about immersing ourselves in the culture.”
“Behind a desk, it’s easy to become complacent and comfortable,” Moore adds. “This trip brought six students together, each of whom has a different point of view on the world, and allowed them the freedom to travel to a new land and create a new perspective for each other.” Back in Rolla, Moore and the other students must now apply their observations and insights from nearly 9,000 miles away to a research topic of their choosing. For Moore, that means a paper contrasting construction management practices in South Africa to those in the U.S., as well as how safety regulations in the two countries stack up. For more information on study abroad opportunities at Missouri S&T, including semester or year-long programs at other universities, visit studyabroad.mst.edu.
The Bridge | Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering 5