By Mckenzie Tzeng-Fearon
Is the fall weather already getting to you? Have you started counting down the days till next summer yet? Then you should start thinking about spending the summer of 2025 participating in an experiential learning opportunity with LA&PS!
As someone who has participated in summer study abroad courses and the DARE program, I am here to tell you 5 reasons why you might want to apply to each respective program.
The Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (or DARE)
- DARE gives participants the opportunity to complete a research project that spans four months. Projects of this scale are not usually possible within the parameters of undergraduate courses. DARE thus gives students a unique preview into postgraduate research work.
- As a student in the DARE program, you will get the exceptional opportunity to work one-on-one with a professor. Such individualized mentorship like this doesn’t come often within the undergraduate experience!
- DARE students come together for an event to share their research findings. Here, you will get the opportunity to share with (and learn from) other passionate, research-focused peers.
- Participants in the DARE program will also receive $5000, paid over the summer term.
- You will develop valuable communication skills as a DARE participant, both by collaborating with your faculty mentor on research tasks, and by transferring your results into a final professional poster for presentation.
- By studying abroad, you will get the opportunity to see the artefacts you might have discussed in class come to life. Whether this means seeing the Acropolis in Greece, or walking through Charles Dickens’s own house in London, history gains a new significance when you physically interact with it.
- Studying abroad also means working with, and often rooming with, a small class of around 15-25 of your peers. I can attest to the strength of bonds made travelling together!
- By studying abroad, you will also find yourself building essential skills that reach beyond academic life. By living in Athens, Greece for a month, I learned how to adapt to a non-English speaking community and navigate cities geographically and culturally divorced from Canada.
- An overlooked privilege of experiencing a summer abroad course is how much you benefit from the planning that program administrators and course directors organize for each course’s itinerary. Many of these instructors have travelled to the course sites before, so their firsthand knowledge goes into constructing your experience as a student. I, for instance, knew that London was a hub of English literary culture, but I would never have been able to plan the comprehensive itinerary that an experienced English professor, who had been to many of the sites before, provided us with.
- Summer abroad courses also present you with the chance to connect with other students at York who share your academic passion. It is often the most eager and curious students that want to push their studies to the next level by travelling. These courses are a rare opportunity to find like-minded peers and make new friends.
About Mckenzie
Mckenzie Tzeng is a third-year student in the English program at York University. She is currently working as a research assistant to Professor Agnes Whitfield in her studies on Surrealism. She has also researched Creativity Studies under Professor Whitfield. Following the completion of her undergraduate degree, Mckenzie hopes to continue her studies in the humanities and literature.