Sian Davies-Vollum

Associate Professor Sian Davies-Vollum writes from an around-the-world voyage on the MV Explorer, where she is a faculty member in the Semester at Sea program. She left from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in August. Read all of her Postcards dispatches.

Before she left, we asked her a few questions.

Please tell us a bit about the program and its purpose. Who are the students?
Yuu can find out about it at www.semesteratsea.org. Students are mainly U.S. college-age students.

What will you be teaching?
Three courses - environmental geology, natural disasters/geohazards and physical geography

What will you be learning?
About the 10 countries visited — both from first hand "in-country" experiences and from the amazing faculty I'll be working with.

Have you done this before?
Yes, a Circum-Pacific voyage for two months in summer 2003.

How did you get involved in it? Why are you interested?
A geology colleague had done it and I thought it sounded like fun. I love to travel.

Any other interesting information?
I'll be traveling with my husband and daughter. We are pretty excited but we have had a huge amount of things to do to prepare for being away for a year.