Global Gateways
Spring 2025
Experience a semester in Dublin, Ireland! Participate in this one-of-a-kind opportunity for a select group of students.
Related programs:
Study Abroad Discovery Program
Program Overview
Global Gateways is organized for a select cohort of first-year students to study abroad during their second semester at Stetson. Students will take 16 credits abroad, including their required First Year Seminar and a general education requirement. In addition to taking classes, several cultural activities and excursions will be organized for the students throughout the semester, such as:
- Day-long trips to places such as Howth, Glendalough and Newgrange and Hill of Tara.
- Local site visits to Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol, the GAA Museum and Croke Park Stadium Tour
- An overnight trip to a location outside of Dublin such as Galway or Northern Ireland
- Several local cultural events such as Gaelic games, Dublin food trail and Causey Farm
You will be accompanied by a Stetson professor and hosted by a local study abroad provider who is helping Stetson manage all on-site logistics for this program. They have a center in Dublin where classes are held, and they have full on-site staff to coordinate student housing, activities, excursions, orientation, student health, safety and more.
Admissions Requirements
You must apply to Stetson University and submit a supplemental application for the Global Gateways Program. Apply early for the best consideration!
Students must be at least 18 years old by December 1, 2024
Why Study Abroad?
- Earn Stetson credit towards your degree requirements.
- Learn to be more independent and self-confident as a global citizen.
- Challenge yourself with high-impact academic and co-curricular activities.
- Pay your regular Stetson tuition and use your financial aid towards your program.
- Build your resume.
- Small classes with a cohort of Stetson students and a Stetson faculty member allow you to easily make connections and life-long friendships with your peers.
- Travel and experience a new part of the world!
Courses
Global Gateways has been designed to have students start their college experience abroad while progressing toward their degree requirements. As a student in this program, you will come back with 16 Stetson credits, including
- a Freshman Seminar: The Spirit of Travel
- a General Education Course: Travel Writing (fulfills an "A" gen ed as well as a "Writing Enhanced" requirement)
- Two elective classes focusing on Irish history, culture, or contemporary society
Questions?
Contact Stetson Admissions or Stetson WORLD: The David and Leighan Rinker Center for International Learning for more information.
All students in the program will take the Spirit of Travel FSEM and the Travel Writing Course with Professor Nancy Barber.
FSEM: The Spirit of Travel
In this course, students will look at the relationship between travel and spirit; in other words, the relationship between outer journeys and inner ones. Pilgrimages have long been a part of religious and cultural traditions: from sacred trips to the Holy Land, Mecca, Bodh Gaya, Lourdes, and Santiago de Compostela to secular pilgrimages to places like the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Vietnam War Memorial, or Graceland. Besides pilgrimages to one specific place, many travelers have more free-ranging objectives: for example, the Australian walkabout or the college-age rite of backpacking around Europe.
In this course, students will explore why travel is such a catalyst for spiritual growth. We focus on the ways in which travel, especially unpredictable travel outside one’s comfort zone, has an effect on the spirit. Since this class will take place in Dublin, students will focus on texts with an Irish perspective—novels, films, short stories and/or essays--as jumping-off points for thoughtful insights, discussions, and writings about the spiritual transformations of travel.
ENCW 111A: Introduction to Writing Literary Nonfiction (Special Topic: Travel Writing)
In this course, students will focus on the art and craft of travel writing. We will analyze exemplary Irish travel writing and try to model some of its magic as students craft, critique, and workshop their own essays based on their travel during the Global Gateways Program. The course will include four major creative nonfiction pieces and many journal entries.
The goals of this writing-enhanced course include the following:
- To strengthen existing writing skills
- To heighten understanding of travel-writing conventions
- To strengthen other life tools, including critical thinking, public speaking and reading
- To increase information, literacy and research abilities
- To produce an archive of writing from the semester in Ireland
Students will also take two additional 4-credit courses taught by Irish Abroad faculty.
Students in this program will be accompanied by Professor Nancy Barber.
Nancy Barber, Sullivan Lecturer in English and faculty director of the Global Gateways Program, majored in political science at Davidson College, then worked as a journalist before getting an MA in English at Stetson University and an MFA in poetry writing at the University of Florida. Barber has taught at Stetson University for 22 years and specializes in creative nonfiction. Her published articles include topics such as family business, human cannonballs, BBQ competitions, and bicycling across the U.S. In 2008, she co-wrote Meals Worth Stopping for in Florida.
Barber has taught an FSEM entitled The Spirit of Travel for over a decade. She taught Travel Writing in Stetson’s Innsbruck, Austria, Program in 2013 and in Stetson’s Freiburg, Germany, Program in 2010. She has extensive experience traveling and backpacking in Europe, including four different Caminos de Santiago hikes, the Tour de Mont Blanc, Hadrian’s Wall Path, and the European Peace Walk in Eastern Europe. Her summers are based in England when she’s not hiking, and she's looking forward to teaching and directing the program in Dublin.
Students in this program will pay their regular Stetson tuition and will have access to all of their financial aid (except for tuition exchange and work-study). Additionally, students will be charged the housing rate for an individual room in an apartment.
Students will not have to pay for a meal plan for the semester; however, they should budget for groceries and meals in Dublin.
Stetson's tuition and housing fees will cover 16 Stetson credits, all program activities and excursions, housing, a 30-day Dublin bus pass, and international health insurance.
Students should budget separately for roundtrip flights to Dublin, meals, and personal expenses.
Estimated Budget (all numbers are approximate):
- Tuition (Spring 2025 - approximate) *Paid to Stetson:$28,500
- Student Life and Orientation Fees (approximate) *Paid to Stetson: $700
- Housing (approximate) *Paid to Stetson: $5,800 (single bedroom, private bathroom)
- Meals in Dublin: $3,000
- Bus Pass: $200
- Passport and Visa costs: Approximately $500
- Personal Expenses (individual travel and exploration, personal items, books, etc.): $3,000
- Roundtrip Airfare: approximately $1,500
Program housing is apartment-style and located in the heart of the Dublin city center. All students are provided with a bus pass (we’ll get you started with approximately 50 euros on your bus pass – but you can add more money to the pass if you use it all up!) and are welcome to "top up" their bus pass throughout the semester.
Students will have their own bedroom with an ensuite bathroom in a six or seven-bedroom apartment. Common areas (such as the kitchen) will be shared with their flatmates.
Meal plans are not included; however, all students have access to a kitchen in their apartments to prepare their own food, and the apartments are centrally located within Dublin City, with several affordable restaurants nearby.
Travel Arrangements
Stetson will arrange an optional group flight from Orlando at the start of the program. If preferred, students who are traveling from outside the central Florida area can choose to book their flights and meet the group in Dublin. Flight costs are separate from tuition and housing fees.
Program Dates
January – May, 2025. The exact dates will be confirmed in early fall 2024.
Orientation
All students will attend both a pre-departure orientation and an on-site orientation in Dublin. More information about this will be sent to program participants after they are admitted.