Perspective Abroad
I was one of about one-third of the students on this trip that were not sustainability majors. The goal of my trip was to gain perspective on the way other people dealt with the sustainability rhetoric taught in the university. The perspective that I was searching for is the differences in priorities and how that related to the development in the economy.
In Morocco I realized that the reaction to sustainability was far more centered around the economy, which was partially surprising but not unexpected from what we were told before the trip. What I realized was the lack of perspective that is taught in sustainability classes on the different definitions of the same thing that can occur in the world. This was apparent in the reaction of many students on the trip in that many of then just didn’t understand the idea that the economy can take priority to the environmental and heath issues of sustainability.
I found this to be inconsistent through the socioeconomic classes in Morocco. When visiting a solar energy company in Morocco we were presented with a plan that more reflected the western ideals of sustainability and neglected many of the things that were emphasized by the younger middle class. This was something that helped me evaluate the perspective that I had myself, and that of my peers.
One of the biggest things that I took away from the trip is that narrow-mindedness and open-mindedness can come in many different forms and many different education levels. The more time I spent with both the students on the trip and the people in Spain and Morocco, the more I learned about perspective.
I learned that that perspective is not as strongly related to education as I originally thought. I found some of the best examples of perspective in the people we talked to in Morocco who may or may not have even known what we were talking about, and some of the worst perspective in the very sustainability students that I studied with. I learned about the different definitions and tried to relate it to how the United States is dealing with many of the issues that we have in this country.
Contrary to many people I have talked to about studying abroad, I did not find a substantial difference in the value placed on sustainability issues between Spain, Morocco or the United States. I actually formed the opinion that we do as good if not a better job addressing what we think the important issues. Rather what we can improve on, along with Europe, is the lack of a broad perspective in what sustainability is and what is taught.