Honors Program Takes Learning Beyond the Classroom with First Study Abroad Trip to Iceland

Earlier this spring, nine students in our Honors Program embarked on the trip of a lifetime, heading to Iceland for a week-long academic and cultural enrichment trip that started in the capital city of Reykjavik. 

Accompanied by Dr. Karenann Carty, Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, and Professor Kat MacDonald, Director of the Honors program, the students spent their time in “the Land of Fire and Ice” engaged in interdisciplinary learning, service, cultural exploration, and reflection -- all in keeping with the program's mission.

The group of traveling students reflected the rich diversity of the Honors Program, including four students from New York (two of whom are members of the Career Pathways program), four international students, and one fully online student from Grenada who, until then, had never had the opportunity to connect with her fellow honors students. 

“It was a trip with a lot of ‘firsts’,” said Honors Program Director Kat MacDonald.

The vision to bring Honors students abroad has been a long time in the making. Knowing that a semester-long program was difficult for many students to commit to, Director MacDonald sought out study abroad opportunities that were shorter that still allowed for meaningful learning experiences for the students. 

After ongoing discussion with Senior Vice President of International Programs Evan Jerome, Professor MacDonald landed on Compass Path, a program that offered a weeklong program and incorporated a volunteer component that felt aligned with the Honors Program’s service-learning approach. Its affordable cost, manageable length, meaningful service-learning component, and unique cultural experiences combined to create a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students.

“It was really a great experience for the students to go on, but it was also financially feasible for our students who did end up participating,” Director MacDonald said.

The nine participating students were:  Maria Antonetty, Cassie Brache, Gizzel Calliste, Mckeown Essuon, Janehsa Hyliger, Karen Rodriguez, Kayanndra Scarlett, Deshorn Spence, and Angelique Stapleton.

To help make the experience more accessible, the Honors Program provided each participating student with a $1,000 travel grant, with additional financial assistance available to students based on demonstrated need.

MacDonald saw this trip as the perfect opportunity to connect one of their courses – Comparative Urbanism, a class where students learn about how cities are structured and operate. For the students who have been immersed in New York City and the greater metropolitan area, traveling to Reykjavik offered a truly experiential applied learning opportunity as the quiet city is a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of The Big Apple.

Later, students visited and volunteered at a forestry site where they learned about Iceland’s landscape and its efforts to maintain man-made forests, which require ongoing care in the harsh environment. They moved branches to line walking paths, providing guides for foot traffic around the delicate plant life, and worked in the nursery.

These experiences demonstrated the sensitive nature of ecosystems and their connection to climate and human impact.

“We all learned a lot about geography and climate,” said Director MacDonald. “It was really eye-opening.”

Following their service days, the group ventured off to other parts of Iceland beyond Reykjavik, visiting the bridge between two continents, black sand beaches and lava fields and going horseback riding. Because students visited in late spring, Iceland was in a period of mostly daylight, with the sun rising around 4:00 am and not setting until around 11:00 pm.

Now back stateside, the students continue to reflect on their trip and are developing a culminating project that they will present at the annual Honors Conference on July 17 in the Mintz Auditorium on the Bronx campus. 

“I think being able to take some time to look back and unpack everything that we experienced will reap even greater returns for these students,” she said. “I think they’ll find that they learned even more than they realized – that learning happens in all kinds of environments, in all kinds of ways.”