Katherine Leswing '07, elaborates on how peace studies affected her experience abroad in France.

I grew up in a small town in Vermont, but I have always been drawn to the learning about the greater world and global community. One way that I have satiated my love for learning about all things international and foreign, has been to take on a foreign language; in my case I have always had a passion for the French language and culture. While I yearned for the opportunities and new perspectives that knowing the French language would give me, I often found it hard to get excited about learning a language in a classroom. For that reason, I had always dreamed of immersing myself in a French-speaking culture.

Although I had always been passionate about French, it was not my only academic interest. I wanted to have an education that would reflect the whole world in which I was living, not an isolated area. Thus, I started taking Political Science and International Relations courses. Peace Studies had not yet been approved as a major, but I took the courses anyway because they were the classes that spoke most to my personal academic interests. By the end of my sophomore year, and still awaiting the approval of the Peace Studies major, I was looking to pair the Peace Studies and French areas of study. It was also in the May after my sophomore year that I was finally able to get my first real taste of French culture when I partook in the three-week intensive course abroad in Avignon, France. While the trip itself was somewhat difficult to finance, the experiences that it gave me were priceless. I believe that being a Peace Studies student made this journey even more enriching.

In Peace Studies, we are concerned with establishing lasting peace and creating equality; in order to achieve these ideals, one must understand all sides of the story. My Peace Studies classes had given me tools to look at a whole picture. As a result, when I was placed in a foreign environment, I was able to look at this new community in its entirety. That’s to say that I didn’t just see white France, immigrant France, rural France or urban France, but I could look at this country as a whole and see how all of its population and their respective ideologies formed the country’s social climate. While I was in Avignon, my French improved enormously, to the point where I could communicate with the people of France in their language, and learn their personal histories. I wasn’t learning about a culture through a political scientist’s analysis, but rather I was learning from the people who were living in it. The heightened ability to communicate and understand different perspectives that is acquired by knowing a second language is the reason a Peace Studies student must complete additional language credits. Global communication and understanding is essential in today’s world.

Peace Studies is a domain that encourages international engagement with the intent of hearing everyone’s voice. Although I traveled to a developed and internationally-prominent country whose voice is generally heard in the global community, my Peace Studies background made me aware to the potentially unheard voices within this society. It was this factor that made my experience so complete and rich, and it is also why I chose to continue my Peace Studies and French learning during a semester in Paris the fall of my senior year for a more immersed academic and social experience. Ultimately, studying abroad with a background in Peace Studies allowed me to realize and benefit from the versatility and practicality of my education.