A Mind for Travel
Travel is education. We seek distance from our everyday lives not only to find new experiences, but to view from a different vantage the world we think we understand. Whether the journey leads to hidden ruins or towering skyscrapers, we learn something new and valuable about ourselves and the world we inhabit.
Each year, dozens of USC Dornsife undergraduates embark on Problems Without Passports, Maymester and other travel experiences that complement their coursework. Engaging directly with different people and cultures, these students explore themes such as peacebuilding in Colombia or contemporary art in Senegal, among many other opportunities.
At USC Dornsife, travel doesn’t require a boarding pass. We continually make the journey to the frontiers of knowledge. Our faculty push the limits of convergent bioscience as they develop ways to predict and prevent diseases. Our historians guide us back in time to provide a means of critically informing the public discourse of the 21st century. Our social scientists bring us into diverse communities, helping us work with them on relevant issues including immigration and economic inequality. And all of our scholars set out searching not only for answers, but for deeper questions.
Exploration is what the liberal arts and sciences are all about. We challenge assumptions. We make surprising connections. We learn to pave our own paths through the great unknown.
And at the end of our travels, we return to the comfort of homes we know so well. But new parts of our minds have been opened — and that opens new possibilities.
Amber D. Miller
Dean of USC Dornsife
Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair
