Harvard has become a synonym for hypocrisy--at least when it comes to accepting credits for study abroad programs. Harvard's idea of international education is bringing students from around the world to Cambridge, not sending its students out to the world. Harvard accepts credit from very particular (and usually Eurocentric) study abroad programs that focus on immersion in one particular country, rather than on programs that offer a holistic introduction to the world, like the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea.

Semester at Sea was founded in 1926 by the Seawise Foundation. Seawise was founded by C.Y. Tung, an idealistic businessperson in the shipping industry in post-World War II China who had a vision of global education through global experience. Semester at Sea was first called "University Afloat." It has since been "University of the Seven Seas (1963-1967), "World Campus Afloat (1967-1970) and finally Semester at Sea (1970-present). It has been sponsored by Chapman College, University of Southern California and University of Colorado, respectively.

Its spring semester voyages usually travel the southern hemisphere through Latin America, South Africa, Kenya, India, Southeast Asia and Japan. It's fall voyages usually travel the northern hemisphere through Japan, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Western Europe. Since 1963, Semester at Sea has taken more than 20,000 students around the world. Its instructional objectives have consistently been to enhance education through classroom knowledge combined with field experience by traveling the world.

According to Harvard's Courses of Instruction, Harvard's primary Core philosophy is to introduce students to "major approaches to knowledge in areas that the faculty considers indispensable to undergraduate education." Harvard's Foreign Cultures common aim is to "expand the range of one's cultural experience and to provide fresh perspectives on one's own cultural assumptions and traditions."

This year's Harvard/Radcliffe undergraduate admissions information magazine's front cover states that Harvard is "a place for energetic young men and women who are alive to ideas and excited by challenges, who will share their talents, and educate one another, and stretch and grow--in college and beyond."

Given how much many of Harvard's faculty members have traveled abroad and how it has contributed to their knowledge and understanding of the world--on Harvard's tab--Harvard couldn't be more hypocritical than to deny its students the same opportunities.

Of course some anal credit board member can argue that the opportunity does exist to travel the world through the Semester at Sea. But who wants to pay another university over $15,000 for one semester without getting academic credit for it, and then have to take summer classes here to make up for the summer classes to make up for the semester? About .01 percent of the population, maybe.

In an era when education abroad has become a national mandate rather than merely interesting supplement to undergraduate experience, expanding international educational opportunities is as important to universities as gaining market share is to corporations. Semester at Sea is one of the best international study abroad programs, Harvard is one of the best domestic study programs--there is no reason why Harvard should not accept credits from Semester at Sea.

If Harvard is to remain one of the greatest universities, it must accept the experiences, wisdom and knowledge the world has to offer. Semester at Sea provides that offer to over eight hundred students a year.

Semester at Sea was my introduction to the world. This past spring voyage, we traveled from the Bahamas to Venezuela, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

I did everything from see the start of a coup to hike through the Rancho Grande rainforest in Venezuela; learn the lambada and other Carnival dances in Rio; party with Desmond Tutu, the mayor of Cape Town, South African students and several ANC representatives at the Bishopscourt (Tutu's residence) in Cape Town; witness and anti-Moi riot in Nairobi, Kenya; learn mantras at the Madurai Temple in India; visit biotechnology production plants, rubber plantations and the beach in Malaysia; visit the Hsin-Chu Science Park in Taiwan; tour Guangzhou (Canton) in Southern China with the mayor to several of Southern China's special economic zones and factories and stay with a Japanese history professor and his family in Kyoto, Japan.

There is no better approach to knowledge than to feel it, cognitive and emotionally. There is no better way to expand one's range of cultural experience and gain "fresh perspectives on one's own cultural assumptions" than to leave your own culture and country, and not just see one or two others, but as many as possible.

Would a professor assign only one or two books to teach an entire subject? There is not better way to be alive to ideas than to live them. Nor is there a better way to educate and challenge one another than to share one's self and ideas than to challenge one's self. Semester at Sea did all of this and enough more to take me a lifetime to fully unpack.

Semester at Sea has become a synonym for challenge. Every second was part of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As a result, I got no more than four hours of sleep a night on the ship and no more than a total of six hours of sleep per port. When I did sleep in port, it was usually during airplane, train or, in certain instances, rickshaw rides--and this time was often used to complete course readings, which averaged over 85 pages per day.

In addition to trying to complete course readings, write country reports and postcards, organize in-port travel and financial arrangements for the next port, attend diplomatic briefings, factory, orphanage and prison visits, welcome receptions and other course-required field work, student were trying to control their culture shock. Every aspect of our lives was challenged in each country, from our sleep habits to our cultural and historical assumptions to language, religion and social manners.