A Global Path

Sophomore Allison Bennett’s experience of learning abroad transforms the classroom into real world experiences, showcasing the value of education beyond borders.

From an upper floor of a government building in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Allison Bennett could see the source of the city’s electricity: a ship anchored in the bay, supplying power to locations throughout the country. During her visit to the West African nation last spring, that power briefly went out, the result of recurring infrastructure problems occurring since the end of the nation’s long civil conflict.

For Bennett, a Seton Hall student majoring in international relations who was part of a study abroad program, the moment captured something she learned about in class — and was suddenly witnessing in real life.

She had been studying state-building and how the country is rebuilding its institutions and infrastructure after 11 years of devastating war. The course, Sierra Leone Seminar: Exploring Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development — taught by Fredline M’Cormack-Hale — is offered by the School of Diplomacy and International Relations. Bennett was among the 12 Seton Hall students who traveled there as part of the seminar.

“It was incredible to learn about it and then actually go there to see the places we’ve been studying and meet people who are living during these pivotal experiences,” Bennett says.

While the trip was exciting for the students, its undertone was “very somber,” she says. Throughout their itinerary, they encountered what Bennett describes as “not light” themes. She met former child soldiers and saw many people whose limbs had been torturously amputated by rebel forces during the civil war.

“Before this trip, when I would think about a war, it felt more like something in history. But in Sierra Leone, this happened a few years ago. These people are still here. This happened to them, and this is actively their story. This realization was very eye-opening,” Bennett says.

What stays with her most from the trip are the people she met.

“The people in Sierra Leone are super nice,” she says. “Almost everybody there had a story somehow connected to the civil conflict, but they were still so welcoming to us and also proud of where they are now.”

During the trip, Bennett and her classmates spoke with students at a public university. At first, the conversations were cautious. “I think they were holding back a bit, as though they didn’t know how we’d react to what they were saying, or if we were judging them,” she says.

But then the students began comparing experiences and perspectives, discovering they had more in common than expected.

“It was really cool to talk with them. They’re not very different,” Bennett says.

Encounters like that reinforced something she says cannot be fully learned from textbooks.

“You can’t just sit in New Jersey and learn about something and think you know all about it,” she says. “You’re not going to know until you go and learn firsthand.”

That belief may be a reason Bennett was awarded a Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship by the U.S. Department of State. The scholarship will pay for her to study this summer at Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany, where she will spend about 10 weeks completing coursework toward her German minor at Seton Hall.

“When she told me she won the scholarship, I screamed,” says Martin S. Edwards, the associate dean for academic and student affairs in the School of Diplomacy. “I think her future is very bright.”

As she prepares for this second international experience as a college student, Bennett says she is approaching it with the same mindset she brought to Sierra Leone: curiosity and an openness to learning from the people she meets.

“Doesn’t the world need more people who will listen to each other?” Edwards asks. “[Those] who understand the value in talking less and listening more?”

“I went into Sierra Leone ready to learn and experience something new,” Bennett says. “I’m excited to do that again in Germany, and hopefully in many more places around the world.”

Lori (Varga) Riley, M.A. ‘06, is a freelance writer living in New Jersey.