Where are you going to travel? Why?

There are now two options for this assignment:

Option 1: Assignment: Spring Break—Traveling Like an Anthropologist–Life Seeing Tourism Experience (100 points)–This is the same as we discussed in class.

The goal of this assignment is for you to critically examine an “experience” over spring break through the lens of a traveler/anthropologist and that you apply what we have talked about in class. The “experience” that you consider must have happened over spring break. It does require that you “travel” in the traditional sense. The “experience” you consider can take place at home or away. Each student is required to prepare a 6 to 8 pages printed on paper that summarizes and/or highlight new experiences that help you better understand your self, others, locations, governments, policies, recreation activities, relationships, tourism, and travel. This assignment requires that you explore and examine “life” from the perspective of an anthropologist. As you learned in class:

A tourist touches only the most superficial aspects of a culture.

A traveler digs much deeper to really experience aspects of the new place first hand.

An anthropologist delves deeper still into what a culture and it’s people are all about. They constantly make inferences about the places they are visiting, the people they are meeting and the things they are observing. They use a wide angle lens–paying particular attention to: cultural contradictions; the way conflict is managed; the way status is acquired and maintained; and the dimensions of space, objects, activities, goals and feelings.

Basically, the assignment requires you to specify and describe a spring break experience and how this “experience” enriched your understanding of yourself, place, people, tourism, community, life, love and anything that you consider to be important. Essentially, this assignment requires you to discover and learn. The paper should include the following components:

Overview of the experience. This section should address the following types of questions relative to the experience that you are going to be writing and talking about. For example, what are you writing about? Were you with others or did you have this experience alone? What is your prior experience with this “new” experience? What did you do during your experience? Why did you do this? Did you enjoy yourself? Why? or Why not? What did you learn from your choice?

Connection with the Course and Lectures. This section should integrate and provide concrete examples of the relationship between your “experience” and the things that you learned and covered in class. For example, you should review each of the major lecture topics and discuss at least three or four general themes (i.e., history of travel, travel related change, cultural shock, culture and identify) or specific attributes/details of a lecture (e.g., things to include in travel journal, types of cultural shock, etc.).

Overview of the personal growth associated with this assignment. This section should provide a brief description of some of things that you learned about yourself and everything or anything else. In essence you are in charge of your own learning—What did you learn? How did you learn it? What will it mean to you and your life?

In order to attain a satisfactory grade on this assignment it is expected that the paper include an introduction that allows the reader to understand the objectives of your paper and a conclusion that effectively summarizes the knowledge attained through the completion of this assignment. The paper should effectively communicate the required information making use of examples to illustrate important points and must be integrated with the lectures and readings. The paper must be well organized and written (I strongly suggest you have class mates or friends or fellow “travelers” proof read your papers). A paper copy of the paper must be submitted on the due date. No digital copies will be accepted (without a penalty).

Option 2: Design a potential “Dream Zen Travel Experience”. Details of assignment:.