Romania! So much beauty...

Romania Overview :) 

This past week (of two) has been filled with lovely landscapes, passionate agriculturalists, warm and loving people, and new insights into an unfamiliar agricultural system.

If you see a passenger van packed with people rolling down a very rural dirt road (or even bouncing through a hay field), it could be us! Six enthusiastic Agricultural Communications students (and 1 Food Science student), one professor, and one graduate student (me) from the University of Georgia, 4 Romanian graduate students, and 1 representative of Heifer International have been traveling through the country. Here's some pictures to explain our experience best :)

Capturing enthusiasm on camera!

Single cow households

Honey tasting from the "Sweet Progress" Cooperative

As a co-leader of the trip, the most important aspect for me was supporting the growth of our students. Of course, I was learning as much as they were, as this was my first time in Romania as well. For many of them this was their very first time abroad! In the last day, we had a  de-briefing with the group to collect key take-aways from the trip. As I see myself taking students abroad as a faculty member (sometime in the FAR future), here were some key thoughts of the students:

•  Language barriers!- They noted that sometimes they just didn't understand what was going on around them and noted their dependency on strangers for translations and advice. What was a universal language on the trip?? DANCING, they noted :) 
• Commonalities across cultures- Both US and Romanian students noted all the similarities between them--music, jokes, sayings, and interests
• Professional communication differences- Communications education takes various approaches and forms. Thus students noted working through these different styles while co-writing their stories with their US/Romanian teams. 
• The untranslatable- Sometimes there is just not a perfect direct translation! (Especially with cultural aspects, which means go travel there yourself, they said.) 
• Everyone needs to study abroad- What a cool take-away from the students. After only two weeks, they noted that being taken out of their comfort zone allowed them to grow, think, and experience new ways. Additionally, they noted that as they meet people around the world (many having never met Americans previously) they are modeling what "Americans are like."