Student Travelblogs

At Columbia College Chicago, we're serious about our "hands-on, minds-on" approach to higher education. We like to say the city is our classroom, and out students learn from the creative professionals producing the culture of our time.

Each year, dozens of our students expand that "classroom" far beyond the city limits,  traveling, among other places, to Asia to learn about the art and culture of China, to Europe to participate in the Cannes Film Festival, or to Central America to practice travel writing in Honduras.

Our Student Travelblogs bring their experiences to life, adding a first-person student voice to our website. Student bloggers send words and images throughout the course of their journey, letting us share in their often-amazing educational experiences.

Click on any image below to visit the blog.

	Reach Out to New Orleans Reach Out is a student-run organization that raises funds all year in order to travel to poverty or disaster-stricken areas and contribute. For the third year running, Columbia students, faculty, and staff have used their spring break to help rebuild New Orleans. Here they tell their stories.
	StoryWeek Festival of Writers: Stories Without Borders For a week in March 2008, Columbia students and Chicago at large get to rub elbows, shake hands, and take each other through more border checkpoints than you can imagine, and all through the story. Come along with us.
	Travel Writing in Honduras For J-term 2008, professor Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin took her journalism students about 2,000 miles to Honduras, "to wander through the Mayan ruins, smell the unfamiliar tropical air, meet all kinds of people, and try to commit our impressions and excitement to paper."
	J-Term in Shanghai: history, culture, & art A dozen students from a variety of majors headed 7,000 miles east in January 2008 on an international educational adventure. They visited tea houses, museums, and galleries; attended music and dance performances; and learned a whole lot about their Chinese counterparts—and themselves.
	Covering the Iowa Caucuses For the first week of 2008, Iowa was the place to be. Veteran political reporters and Columbia professors Suzanne McBride and John O'Neill, along with a dozen journalism and photography students, headed across the border into Iowa for a truly unique opportunity to build their reporting skills on the scene in a historic election.
	Travel Writing in Mexico 2007 Professor and journalist Teresa Puente took her summer-term travel writing class to Guadalarjara, Mexico, where they practiced this particular form of journalism as they were immersed in a transformative  educational experience.
	Columbia at Cannes 2007 For two weeks in May 2007, a group of Columbia film students spent their days working at the American Pavilion at Cannes, and their evening networking and mingling with the movers and shakers of the international film industry. Some even had the opportunity to screen their own work at the Cannes Film Festival.
	Summer in Florence 2007 In summer 2007, Columbia faculty taught five courses in Florence, in architecture, art history, watercolor, photography, and videography. Their students spent an unforgettable month ensconced within the campus of the Lorenzo de Medici school, parts of which date to the 13th century.