Day 2 in Croatia - University Visit (Friday, July 9)

Had an EARLY wake-up time of 6:30 AM today. After breakfast on the ship, I went with the other 16 members of Student Affairs at Sea (plus 3 other SASers, Kathy, and her partner Keith) to our first “official” university visit of the trip. We went to the American College of Management and Technology which is an international branch campus of RIT. The entire university has about 500 students and is housed in one five-story building overlooking the old town of Dubrovnik. My class met with a Croatian woman named Ana who spent the morning talking to us, orienting us to the college, and answering all of our (endless) questions about Croatian higher education. We had lunch at a local restaurant called Sesame and then went back in the afternoon for a long art history lecture (which seemed out-of-place for our purpose there) as well as discussion time with students of ACMT.

A few interesting things about higher ed in Croatia:

1. Public education – even higher education – is free for Croatian students. There is private higher ed, but there is a stigma attached to a private degree. Croatians (in general) feel that if one is paying for education, credit is not necessarily earned, but rather purchased. This may suggest that students from private institutions are buying a diploma rather than actually earning their degree. On the other hand, if Croatian students decide to go the public route, it is not uncommon that it will take them eight or nine years to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, due to the indifference that free education causes (on the part of the students and the faculty).

2. As a branch campus of RIT, ACMT serves two distinct groups of students - American students who are studying abroad as well as Croatian students. While the American students struggle to become orientated to a new city, the Croatian students must adjust to the American university style of teaching and learning – which requires much more participation and challenging/providing a critical view of the course material or the teacher’s expertise. It seems as if there is a crucial opportunity here for students to engage with others who are unlike themselves and yet the system (having Americans live with Americans and take classes separately from Croatians) does not encourage this interaction.

3. The third issue that was very salient to me during the visit was the ethical considerations of implanting the American college experience in foreign countries. I have a lot of questions about “right-ness” of American institutions setting up shop in a foreign country and I feel like I need to learn more about it. In the meantime, I’m wondering: In creating American institutions of higher education in other regions of the world, are we (as Americans) being sensitive to the host cultures? What are the benefits for the non-American students? What are the benefits to the American institution? We began to discuss these questions in our conversations at ACMT, but I still wonder if ACMT (and other branch institutions like it) are examples of Americans imposing their beliefs and ideas about education on to a foreign system. Who says that the US way is really the best? Wouldn’t a more collaborative effort be more effective? It’s interesting to think about.

After the visit to ACMT, I walked down to the old part of Dubrovnik, where the whole city is built of beautiful smooth stone. Also, the city is set up in a way that allows the breeze to pass through, so inside the city is pretty cool rather than being scorching hot in the sun. Clever, right? We paid a few kuna (Croatian currency) and then climbed the stairs to walk around the top of the walls that surround the old city – think: big fortress. Much of the city is touristy with souvenir shops and gelato places everywhere you look! Parts of the city (near the back)are also a little run down – with no windows or garbage spewed around. Mostly, though, it was a very pleasant city. It reminded me of Disney World a little, not sure why…maybe because the stones just made everything seemed so polished and there was a gift shop everywhere you looked?

The walls of the city hug the coast, so I got a great view of the ocean. As we were walking around, we saw a ton of cliff divers jumping from the rocks outside the city walls. It was crazy to watch how close they were coming to hitting the rocks! A ton of Semester at Sea students jumped and were all black and blue when they returned to the ship. It’s so stupid and dangerous and I just don’t understand it…

After catching a city bus back to the port and stopping at the ship to refresh a little, a group of us went out for drinks before dinner at this awesome bar just outside the walls of the city called Māla Buzo. The bar is built into the rocks that stagger down to the ocean level. To get inside, you have to climb through a hole in the wall of the city. It was awesome to watch the boats on the water and watch the light fade away during the sunset. Afterward, we went to dinner in the old town at a restaurant called the Taj Mahal. Yes, I know it is a funny name of a restaurant in CROATIA, but it served Bosnian food, which I had never tried before! It was really good – kind of a mix between Greek and what I imagine Turkish food will be like. We ordered a pita and sausage platter with garlicy yogurt dip, cold cucumber soup, some cheese fritter type things, cheese phylo dough “pie,” grilled veggies, and a phylo dough wrapped pastry with cheese and veal. It was really great to experience a new cuisine. It made me excited to visit Bosnia and Turkey! We didn’t get back to the ship until 1 AM, then crashed for a few hours of precious sleep. : )