Some students may be too afraid to spend an entire semester in another country or afraid to travel and live with unfamiliar people, but that was not the case for N.C. A&T students Courtney Jackson and Melanie Payton.

Jackson, a senior public relations major, spent her Fall 2012 semester in Hong Kong.

“I wanted to study abroad because I’ve always wanted to be out of my comfort zone and see a different part of the world,” said Jackson. “I wasn’t always brave enough. I went through the training and workshops as a sophomore but I chickened out.”

During her junior year, she finally decided that time was running out, so she set her hopes on China, Italy or Australia. And China it was.

“There was something about China that was pulling me,” said Jackson who received a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship to study abroad. “I think it was seeing the growth in their industry and economics that made me interested. I also wanted to see how their traditions would compare to American traditions.”

Jackson took a lot of international relations and political courses while in Hong Kong, and though her classes were three hours long, the experience was well worth it.

“I was knee deep in politics which I always thought I hated, but then I realized that a lot of what is going on in the world and how we communicate is between two things. Politics and money,” she said. “In our world, that’s important, and that’s what I wanted to learn about.”

Everyday was a cup of tea, literally. She started everyday with a cup of tea while looking out of her apartment window to see the beautiful view of the mountains.

“Where I lived…it was comfortable,” she said. “I did miss the way we cooked in America. The Chinese are more about the natural taste of the food, and there’s a lot of rice!”

Jackson was also able to be a part of the Reach the World Program where she would send articles and pictures to a 2nd grade class in Brooklyn, N.Y. so they could follow her journey.

“There hasn’t been anyone that came back from studying abroad that said they shouldn’t have gone,” said Allegra Lang, Study Abroad Coordinator.

“The world is becoming more interdependent, as students graduate, they literally are competing with students from all over the world,” said Lang who studied abroad twice in France while attending Spelman College before teaching English in France post graduation.

“I wanted HBCU students, in particular, to have the experience that I had studying abroad,” said Lang. “In my second semester, there were

only two out of 70 students in my program that were African American.”

Payton had a similar experience.

“The program that I went under was predominantly white,” the industrial and systems engineering senior explained. While Jackson spent her semester in one country, Payton was a part of the Semester-At-Sea program that is affiliated with the University of Virginia, which allowed her to travel to 13 countries during the semester.

“At first, I was going to study in Brazil, but with Semester-At-Sea, I got to experience a lot,” said Payton. Of the 13 countries, Portugal, Uruguay, South Africa, and Ghana were her favorites. In South Africa, she was able to hike a mountain for the first time as well as swim with sharks, go on a safari, and even pet a cheetah. But Ghana proved to be one of the most moving countries she visited.

“It was so empowering,” Payton said. “Ghana was all Black…there was Black everywhere.” She enjoyed the cultural experience that was much different from the other countries she traveled to.

Payton also traveled to Novascotia, Ireland, London, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Santa Cruz, Argentina, Dominica, and Brazil. While in Brazil, she was able to meet Thomas Shannon, the U.S. Ambassador for Brazil.

She enjoyed her trip so much, that she and some other students who accompanied her are trying to find ways to create scholarships to target underrepresented minorities in the program.

According to statistics provided by the Institute of International Education, about 4.8% of African Americans participated in study abroad programs in the 2010-2011 academic year.

Karmen Robinson contributed to this article.

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• Victorri Taylor, Contributor