Spring has sprung, and with it the travel bug. With resurgent ceremonies of spring break trips in the past, many students are eager for their next vacation, whether it be to familiar scenery or new. 

   This need to step off-campus and experience the lives you read about is not a new one. Beyond the simple need to whisk off to a beach and let go of responsibilities, there often also lies a desire to learn in a new way, to stop learning by reading and listening to the wiser and to make your own decisions about things you see firsthand. The world is your classroom, and you have a lot to learn.

   Sometimes the days of classes and homework and essays make you yearn for the days of elementary field trips, when everyone just understood that because you were going to the science museum or down the corner to see local businesses you were allowed to be absent for the day. But it’s not just we high school graduates who miss field trips. Students still in grades K-12 might be missing them as well. According to the American Association of School Administrators, over 50 percent of schools eliminated planned field trips in 2011. Yearning for a step outside the classroom and a different kind of learning seems to be a problem for all ages of American students.

     It is well-documented that field trips encourage learning outside the classroom helps students become more responsible for their learning and, in fact, help them retain knowledge. In fact, the British government has taken significant steps to fund learning outside the classroom. Furthermore, the benefits of taking field trips are greater for disadvantaged students who have less opportunity to venture outside their central communities. Though taking trips simply for the joy of going somewhere new and rich has its own rewards, research has shown that learning outside the classroom is most successful when it is an integral element of long-term curriculum planning and closely linked to classroom activities. Also it is successful when field trips are carefully planned to be part of objectives taught within the classroom and the curriculum continues to build upon the experience after students return to regularly scheduled class. 

   Field trips aren’t just for grades K-12. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has instituted a program that finds grants to fund field trips to enhance leadership. Graduate programs offer opportunities for students to see all types of places to further their exposure or present their work. At Mississippi State University, students can study abroad everywhere from Spain to Korea to Chile, all while getting credit for classroom learning. But these trips are not just to exotic new places. MSU also sponsors a service learning trip every spring break to the Mississippi Delta, where students learn about the region from the communities. 

   So if you’re feeling the travel bug, look around you. Find a place you want to know more about and utilize the resources the faculty at this university have to offer. Learning doesn’t have to be the same classes day after day. It can take place in the most unlikely of places.