*Students must speak with Anna May first before completing an application through the Education Abroad Office.*

Course: SOWK 368

Dates: 5/11/2025 - 5/21/2025

Program Contact: MAY8@mailbox.sc.edu

Program Description:

Through this course with a travel component students will be introduced to relevant theory and research in international social work, will meet and work with Romanian students, learn about Romanian culture and history through a historical tour of Romania. Students will learn about current social problems in Romania and how they connect to global issues, and visit educational and social services institutions in Romania. These activities aim to encourage students to recognize, interrogate and dismantle processes of othering based on the west/east binary and forge connections with Romanian peers.

The educational activities designed to achieve these goals are:

Visit with West University of Timisoara, Department of Social Work, Timisoara, Romania

Day 1: Meet & Greet Romanian Students & Faculty – Reception Dinner

Day 2: Workshop (3 hours): students take the role of experts on their own country culture – introducing American culture to Romanian students, and introducing Romanian culture to American students via presentations, discussions and role-play.

Guided visit to a local social services organization – Probation Services

Historical tour of Timisoara – tracing the anti-communist revolution

Day 3: Workshop (3 hours): Local problems, global problems? Students will explore pressing current social problems in Romania and U.S. and identify common concerns.

Guided visit to a local social services organization – NGO serving children with disabilities founded with U.S. support; based on students’ interests’ other sites could be added.

Exploring Timisoara with a peer – students will explore fun sites, arts, entertainment in Timisoara with a Romanian student

Day 4: Workshop (3 hours) on cultural representations – exploring the myth of Dracula in American and Romanian Culture; Romanian and U.S. students will share and compare what knowledge , information, images, ideas, and feelings they associate with Dracula; the work of Romanian scholars on representations of Dracula in the Western culture will be introduced by the instructor, to invite students to recognize and begin dismantling processes of “othering” and “orientalization” via cultural productions.

Independent exploration of Timisoara

Tour of Romania – 5 days: Day 5 to Day 10 – will give students the opportunity to visit various historical and touristic sites in Romania, including:

Bran Castle (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bran-Castle), best known as Dracula’s Castle,

Turda Salt Mine - a spectacular Roman Salt mine dating from antiquity, one of the oldest salt mines in the world transformed in a theme park (https://www.salinaturda.eu/en/journey-into-the-past)

Danube Delta

Bucharest

Tour of Budapest – Day 11 to Day 12 – will give students the opportunity to guided visits of historical and touristic sites in another major Eastern European City

Application Deadline:  March 1