For many students, learning is associated with studying, test-taking and the classroom. Despite this, many important life lessons occur outside the school building. Traveling is a fundamental aspect of many students’ education, even if they do not always recognize it as such. This is because traveling offers opportunities to experience new cultures, meet new people and gain new experiences that help develop a broader understanding of the world.
A significant benefit of traveling is meeting new people. The act of meeting others can not only help someone learn about different cultures and etiquette, but it can also improve communication and social skills. A student at Baruch College Campus High School, Aldi Blakaj, touched upon this specific benefit. “Well, traveling’s helped me learn a new language. So when I would go and I would travel, my only choice was to learn because there was nobody there that knew English.”
An article by the Harvard Graduate School of Education adds to this idea and explains, “It (traveling) is about people: the people you see, the people you meet, and the people who change you along the way.”
Traveling also gives students a wider understanding of the world. Another student at BCCHS, Oona Morrison, talked about the misconceptions that many people have about certain countries.
Morrison said “Well, I lived in India for 7 years, and especially in the US, there’s a very negative light on Indian culture and Bengali culture. I also lived in Bangladesh. Yeah, I mean, there are so many misconceptions. So much is misconstrued and it’s very negative.”
It is clear that in order to fully understand different parts of the world, people must travel to gain a more accurate understanding of a place and its culture.
In relation to education, traveling provides several benefits. Two of the most important are cultural exposure and real-world context.
The first is cultural exposure. One of the most common experiences people gain from traveling to another country is learning about a different culture. No one expressed this more clearly than Aldi Blakaj, who discussed his experience with his homeland’s culture. Blakaj said, “one of the benefits is probably just like getting to learn and see the culture. Because obviously, there are groups of Albanians here in New York, but the way it’s just so much different, so much more different when you’re over there.”
Additionally, Oona Morrison also spoke about her experiences with different cultures by saying “people can think that they’ve read enough in textbooks or watched enough videos, seen enough videos on TikTok. To think that they know stuff about a certain country or region, but until you’re actually there and connected even from like tourist attractions, you really don’t know what it’s like in that culture. If someone’s traveling, I’d urge them to set themselves apart from the other tourists and actually try to submerge themselves into the actual culture of the place.”
Another educational benefit of traveling is the real-world context it provides. When students visit places that have historical importance, they often gain a deeper understanding of events they study in school.
For example, Aldi Blakaj spoke about his time in Italy where he says, “I went to Rome 2 summers ago, and I guess, was learning a little bit more about history. And I guess that kind of boosted my academic performance in AP Gov and US history and all these kinds of things. Because it just kind of like helped me push myself to learn more about culture and history.”
Ultimately, the benefits of traveling are not limited to select individuals. Traveling can have a deep impact on anyone willing to step outside their comfort zone and explore new places. I encourage everyone to do so, as visiting different parts of the world is not just beneficial but is essential to personal growth and education.
