Oil
Wednesday • May 3, 1995
Agg ieli f e
The Battalion • Page 3
A&M students get first-hand opportunity to study as they travel the globe
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By Jay Knioum
The Battalion
s soon as Wendy Vinzant got off the plane, she immedi
ately faced one of the toughest challenges Paris has to
offer — the airport. Vinzant and the rest of the Study
Abroad students bound for Italy swarmed in a chaotic clump
in the confusion of the Charles de Gaulle Airport. Their task:
to get their luggage shipped to Italy, and reach a hostel on the
other side of town.
No problem.
“We didn’t know it was going to take the entire day to get to this
ostel,” Vinzant said. The group had to find a place to ship their
uggage, not an easy task since they had no idea where they were
n ■going and were struggling with a strange language and the
ll^unfamiliar metric system.
Once they found the station,
hey were told that no, they
ouldn’t ship their luggage into
taly, so it ended up going to
urich, Switzerland. Vinzant
said that by the time they finally
reached their hostel, they were
Zttem ready to die.
f thn
That was the first day.
Vinzant, a junior environmental design major, was one of many
tudents in Texas A&M’s architecture program who hopped over the
tlantic last fall on one of the journeys sponsored by the Study
broad program.
The destination was Santa Chiara, Italy, in Castiglion Fiorenti-
al res” no ’ w ^ 1 ^ c ^ 1 i® somewhere in the middle of the country.
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Vinzant said that even though much of the trip was a test, it was
•still a blast. In between classes, she traveled all over Italy and Eu
rope, visiting Germany, Sicily, the volcanic islands of Stromboli —
PThat was a lot of fun, we climbed an active volcano, and watched it
erupt at night” — and the city of Prague, just to name a few.
s Vinzant said all the new sights and sounds, it made a challenge
for the students to keep their minds on their studies.
I “A lot of people come here with the idea, ‘Oh, I’m going to see Eu
rope!’ but they do have to study,” Vinzant said. “You just have to
realize that there’s lots of opportunity to see things and learn
things, study as you go.”
This is the focus of the Study Abroad Program. As the mission
statement reads, “The mission ... is to provide students in all fields
of study at all levels a wide range of education experiences
abroad.”
Mona Rizk-Finne, the director of Study Abroad, wanted to dis
pel what she called one of the biggest myths about the program —
that it is only for wealthy students.
“That’s not the case,” Rizk-Finne said. “ We are very fortunate
at Texas A&M, because we have a number of financial aid oppor
tunities and scholarships to help needy students study abroad.”
One of these financial aid sources is the Si International Stu
dent Services fee that A&M students pay each semester.
She said this and other
scholarships are need-
based, such as the For
mer Student Study
Abroad Scholarship,
and the Barnes & No
ble’s scholarship.
Rizk-Finne said that
even though most of
the programs during the summer are full with names
spilling onto waiting lists, there are still openings in the
Spring of ’96 Italy program. She said this program would help
meet the needs of international studies majors and business ma
jors with an international emphasis.
“At a time when we are living in a global village with economic
interdependence, it’s incumbent on our graduates to be thinking
about including a Study Abroad during their tenure at A&M,”
Rizk-Finne said.
Many departments work with the study abroad office to allow
students this opportunity. These departments are as varied as ar
chitecture, English, and wildlife and fisheries.
An ongoing program sends groups of students to the island of
Dominica, not to be confused with the Dominican Republic. The
program is a course in field biology of the tropics.
On the island, which is covered with rain forest, a field research
center is operated by a consortium of universities of which Texas
A&M is a member.
Dr. Jim Wooley, a professor of Entomology who will be going to
Dominica on this summer’s trip, said the pro
gram gives students an opportunity to conduct
experiments in a natural setting.
“Some people learn better with a hands-on
type program,” he said.
David Laurencio, a senior zoology major
who went to the Caribbean island last year,
said the trip was a lot of work, but the stu- jffcAJS
dents had time for fun as well. /"y
In addition to countless hours conduct- /,
ing research on programs that they de
vised in the island’s rain forest, the stu
dents got to roam about the island.
“The people were open. They would
talk to you forever,” Laurencio said.
Laurencio said that one of the
changes he had to make was to his ap
petite. The students had to get accus
tomed to roots and soup on a daily ba
sis, but were not totally deprived of
meat.
“We ate dinner in a hotel down the
hill from the house we stayed in,” Lau
rencio said. We ate things like rabbit,
beef, some dolphin meat — which ac
tually wasn’t too bad.”
Laurencio said there is nothing
like actually working out in the open.
“You can read all you want, text
books, littledoing the work hands-
documentaries,” he said.
“But it’s nothing like ac
tually going out in the for
est, getting rained on. It’s
neat to actually be out, do
ing the work hands-on.”
reudian Slip prepares to give last dose of improvisational comedy Saturday
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By Keryl Cryer
The Battalion
I f you think improvisational comedy is only for
those late-night study breaks when the remote
1 just happens to land on A&E, you haven’t seen
A&M’s own brand of improv.
Freudian Slip will give their last performances of
the semester in Rudder Forum Saturday, May 6
at 7 and 10 p.m.
Diana Hodges, who is in charge of publicity
and promotion for Freudian Slip, said the 16-
member group has become increasingly more
popular on campus with the rising popularity of
stage comedy.
1*1 “As for improv comedy in this area, this is the
only opportunity there is and I just feel that
everybody should take advantage of it,” she said.
“We’ve worked really hard.”
a The idea for the improvisational show came
from the theater department when students used
Lo: experiment with the comedy style just for fun.
tp “It started in 1989, but at that time, it was
pretty much done informally after Aggie Players
meetings,” Hodges said.
I During the fall of 1993, the troupe began to do
free shows in front of small audiences in Ru
mours in the MSG as they learned the basics of
producing an improv show. They also donned the
title A&M Improvisational Comedy Troupe at
that time.
Freudian Slip eventually outgrew the small
ispace in Rumours and moved their performances
to the 300-seat Rudder Forum and changed their
name in fall of 1994.
i The troupe’s following has grown to the point
where they’ve started selling tickets an hour be
fore each show to maintain crowd control and
still turn over 100 people away from each show.
Damaso Rodriguez, the director of Freudian
Slip and one of the performers, said many people
don’t mind standing for the entire two-hour show.
“That’s why we’re trying for our final shows of
the year, we’re going to do two performances to
accommodate more people,” Rodriguez said.
But the two shows will not be carbon copies of
each other. Since there are no set lines or script, the
scenes change every time.
The troupe per
forms more than 40
types of skits and rou
tines, making a repeat
highly unlikely.
“Every improv show
is different just because
it relies on audience
participation and we
have different audi
ences or different
themes,” Hodges said.
The audiences often
suggest the themes or
settings for the
sketches performed
during a show. Popu
lar topics include set
tings on-campus, such
as at Sbisa Dining
Hall, and themes re
lated to current news
events, especially the
most sensationalized.
“We went through a
lot of Tonya Harding
themes, not that we
planned it that way,”
Hodges said. “That’s
just how it happened.”
The only sketch
Jason Wetborn/Special to The Battalion guaranteed to repeat
_ , A1 ^ ^ x . every show is the clos-
Freudian Slip will give their last performances of the semester Saturday. skit The p er f ormers
always take a popular movie the audience is familiar
with and condense the entire movie into a five-
minute synopsis, Rodriguez said.
The troupe doesn’t just use the audience to give
them basic suggestions for their skits, though. They
occasionally bring them on stage.
Even with the audience’s help and support,
Rodriguez said, improvisational comedy is still
very difficult to do.
“If you ask most actors, this is probably the hard
est thing,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a lot of pressure. It’s
kind of like psychological bungee jumping because
you’re on stage and the odds are against you. The
worse that can happen out there is you go and you
run out of something to say. That’s happened a cou
ple of times. That happens to everyone.”
These incidents won’t keep Freudian Slip’s 10
main performers and 4 newer members who are cur
rently training down, though. Several members are
already writing comedy on the side and hope to con
tinue as comedians in the future. Of course, one of
their biggest projects is to keep Freudian Slip going
after they leave.
“As of May of ’96, all of the original troupe
members will be wiped out, except for one,” Ro
driguez said.
“We had an open audition this spring and we’ll
have another open audition this fall. We’re trying to
see if we can make this something that lasts after
the founding members are gone.”
As well as continuing their tradition with new
members, Freudian Slip also plans to expand into
other spheres and to reach new audiences.
“This summer, we’re trying to perform and get
some line ups off campus, like at 3rd Floor Can
tina or something like that,” Hodges said. “Also
we’re probably going to perform at every session
of Fish Camp.”
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WHAT ARE YOUR SUMMER
PLANS?
The Mathematics Department
is running a full summer 1995 schedule.
Summer school offers the following advantages:
1. Smaller class sizes
2. No lines at help sessions
3. Greater personal attention
Consult Summer Teaching Schedule for further details.