Welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

These are conversations with Grand Valley State University film and video

graduates about the industry, the film video major, and alumni profiles.

Hello and welcome to Alumni Live: The Podcast.

My name's Caitlyn Shaw, and today we're talking about studying abroad.

I am a current film and video graduate at GVSU.

I'm working at WGVU as a production assistant currently, and I studied abroad

in the Czech Republic for a semester.

Do you guys wanna introduce yourselves?

Yeah, I'm Bill Cuppy.

I work for Grand Valley now.

I'm in University Communications and my team does all the creative and

multimedia for the university, so film, video, photography, multimedia

design for the university as a whole.

But more importantly, I'm a proud film and video graduate from Grand Valley

State University, way back in the day.

Hi, I am Callie Wynne.

I'm a current film and video student here at Grand Valley.

I work at the Bridge.

We make videos and whatnot for faculty.

I am currently working on my thesis, directing and shooting that.

I'm also the cinematographer for that, and I studied abroad last summer in Ireland.

Ooh, what's the name of your film?

It's called Nothing to Lose.

It's a star-crossed lovers at the end of the world story.

I am so excited to see it.

Callie.

Everyone on today's podcast has traveled at various points in For me,

I did a semester abroad in the Czech Republic, which is in Eastern Europe.

Callie Wynne, who was with us, did a shorter study abroad

in the summer in Ireland.

And Bill, why don't you tell us a little bit about where you studied abroad?

Well, that's the interesting part.

Thanks, Caitlyn.

Appreciate you welcoming me to the podcast.

I did not study abroad, which I don't have too many regrets in my life,

but I have traveled quite extensively since graduating from Grand Valley.

My wife and I both have got a lot out of our travel experience, a lot of

growth, a lot of perspective, and we both look back on our time at college

and if we could do it all over again, we would prioritize studying abroad

because at that age and that time of life, when you're open to so many new

opportunities and perspectives and experiences, what a great time to do it.

So we decided that's why we need to start a scholarship for it,

for film and video students.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I know a big reason why I wanted to study abroad is I had a

lot of adults in my life instill in me, you'll never have this much free

time to travel in your life again.

You will never have this little of responsibility again.

So now's the time to do it.

And so once I got to college and I figured out that in my schedule I could do my last

semester abroad, I wanted to, that was the goal, even though it was kind of scary.

Callie, can you talk a little bit about why you wanted to study abroad?

Yeah, so I always wanted to travel internationally, even

from when I was like, 12.

I actually met with advisors back when I was in high school to see

if that was something I could do.

Nothing really came from that.

But then I got to university and I got involved in so many different clubs and

work and so it wasn't in the cards for me to go for a semester, but I found

a really cool program over the summer.

And so it's just something I've always wanted to do, so I took the chance.

All right, so my next question for everyone is, and I'm gonna

modify for Bill, is, of all the places you can go in the world, why

did you pick the place you went?

For me, it was honestly like faith or destiny that got me there because I knew I

wanted to do a semester abroad, but I was getting really overwhelmed and stressed

with just the sheer amount of options.

' Cause for me, especially my last semester, I just needed more

credits, but it could be anything.

So I was looking at a bunch of programs, but it was just all

too much and I couldn't decide.

And then one day I was talking to Joel Potrykus, one of my

professors, and he found out that I wanted to study abroad and he's

like, Czech Republic, you gotta go.

'cause I guess he lived there for a year, I think, after he graduated from college.

And that was just the sign I needed, and I looked into the Czech Republic.

I didn't even really know where that country was when he suggested that.

For those who don't know, it is right next to Germany.

But I looked into it and it has a lot of cool history.

It was bombed once, but besides that, in World War ii, like it's

very intact compared to other cities.

It's very central, and I knew I wanted to travel to a lot of other places.

So pretty much every weekend I was there, I went to another country.

So I went to 13 countries total in my semester abroad.

And drank a lot of Red Bull and took a lot of overnight trains,

but I got where I needed to go.

Just Red Bull, Caitlyn?

Hey, pink Red Bull, best flavor of Red Bull.

Europe has more Red Bull than we do.

That is my fun fact about Europe.

So I guess my split off questions are, Callie, why did you pick Ireland, and

Bill, you did not go on study abroad, but what is your, like, favorite country

you've been to that you would recommend people go to if they get the chance?

I was just always drawn to Ireland.

I have a lot of ancestry there, so it was just kind of always on my radar.

That trip was the first time I've ever left the US or Canada.

And so I was really nervous about a potential language barrier.

And so that played a really big factor into why I ended up going with Ireland.

Because I knew that, while Irish is a language spoken there,

it's predominantly English.

And so I knew it would be a little bit more in my comfort zone than a

lot of other countries would've been.

Do you regret going there, Callie?

No, not at all.

Did you get to travel other places too?

I did and since then I've gone to France and I've been to Belgium and Ireland is

still my favorite of the countries that I've gone to, so I don't regret it at all.

Awesome.

So I've got an interesting story.

A little bit about my history is I went to Grand Valley in film

and video from 1988 to 1995.

It took me a while.

And eventually, I started my own business, Cuppy Productions, and I

made connections with Mark Shaub, who is currently the Dean of Brooks

College of Interdisciplinary Studies, but at the time he was the Director

of the Padnos International Center.

He had a need to promote study abroad on campus and around campus.

And of course I had a desire to travel and was running my own business.

So we struck up a really interesting sort of win-win deal where I comped

out all of my production costs as long as he covered my travel costs.

And then, we just figured out what would work for post-production.

So it gave him a reasonable way to create study abroad videos, and me a

free way to travel the world and make a little bit of money in post-production.

My first travel experience in high school was Haiti, and that

changed my life just because the perspective I was able to see there.

But I never studied abroad or even traveled internationally through college.

I did do a trip to Ireland in 96.

But teaming up with Mark, we've been all over the world and he was very

efficient with his travel schedule.

So each trip, it would be a whirlwind trip.

Two countries at least per trip, three or four days in each country.

So I wanna say we did Krakow and then Germany, and then one year

we did Japan and then Bosnia.

. We did Tanzania, Africa, probably the most incredible experience.

And the beauty was, I got to document and share stories of Grand

Valley students studying abroad and the immense impact to a person.

In every video interview the final question was like, how do you feel?

What does this mean to you?

And every single person had changed their lives, in one way or another.

But the most extreme and cool and crazy and wild experience was going to India.

And I'll just point out that India is not for everyone.

But if it is for you, it's really interesting.

Some of the best and worst smells of my life.

I experienced everything from the most amazing food to a lot of armpits in

Mumbai on the subway, cattle walking freely in the street because they

were sacred, and some amazing people.

So I think that's one of the reasons why my wife and I, Michelle, gave a

little extra edge to film and video students who wanna study abroad in

less normal places, so to speak.

So, maybe not London or Paris or Barcelona, and that doesn't mean the

scholarship can't go to those people, but there is some sort of sense of adventure

to it and encouraging that when possible.

So, long story, but, we've traveled a lot personally, and so the places I pick

are usually almost always new places.

Although we have returned to Valencia, Spain, and my wife spent five weeks

there last summer with one of our sons on his last year of high school.

So we have returned a couple times, but generally we pick new, exciting places.

Going off of something you said, I feel like a big part of

studying abroad and a worry some people have is the culture shock.

My question is, does anyone have any big culture shock moments?

I know for me, one thing that was really hard to get used to is in the

Czech Republic and a lot of Europe, if you ask for water, they're going

to assume you mean sparkling water.

And I'm not a sparkling water fan and I ran a 5K in Prague.

I'm so tired.

Someone hands me a water and I like try to chug the whole thing and I

immediately just spat it out and all the Czech people are looking at

me like I'm crazy but I'm like, who hands out sparkling water at a 5K?

Yeah, I've been there what do they say it's sin gas?

No, no gas.

Very important phrase wherever you go in Europe, if you do

not like sparkling water.

Wow.

think for me it was just a bunch of little things.

There just kept being moments like there's restrictions in the US about which way

doors have to open, which isn't always a thing in the EU, and just the food.

Also, I think the first time I had to go to a grocery store over there was just

such a crazy experience 'cause it was just a little bit off from what I knew.

Times like that, just kept happening.

Everything was just a little different than what I was used to.

How about the size of the doors Callie in Ireland?

I don't know if you're tall or short, but I remember I had to duck

into some pubs and places because everything was old and short.

Oh yeah.

That was definitely a big thing.

I stayed in a pretty modern area for a lot of my studies, but then at the

end I traveled around Ireland and there were a lot of cramped spaces.

Where did you go in Ireland?

Can you tell us?

Yeah, so I studied in Limerick, so like Midwest, Ireland.

And then during a weekend there, a friend and I, we went up all the way to like

Derry And then we also went to Dublin.

And then in the week after I went to Killarney, so Ring of Carrie

Southwest, and then I went to Cork.

I spent a lot of time in Galway.

I think Galway was my favorite place I went.

Beautiful.

Huh?

Oh, it's so lovely.

And then I also spent a lot of time at the Aran islands.

I got to go to both Inishmore and Inisheer spend a day each there.

Did you see the cliffs of Moher along your way?

Oh boy, I did, oh, the cool.

I mean, I'm super old, but when I went, we could crawl to the edge of

the cliff and look straight down.

I think I've heard they've got, some sort of fencing, so you can't do that anymore.

I'm sure there's very good reason for that.

Oh, absolutely.

It's very blocked off now.

Like you can't get within eight feet of the cliff side.

But when I was on Inishmore I went to, I'm gonna butcher the pronunciation,

but it's like Dún Dúchathair, which is the black fort and it's a fort

from the 11th, 12th century, and it's all the way out on the cliff side.

It reminded me a lot of the cliffs of Moher, but it was not touristy at all.

There were no fences.

There were no people there either.

And so I think that was probably a little similar to your experience of the cliff.

But yeah, Cliffs of Moher were very windy.

It was rainy, which is pretty, you know, the, the usual for Ireland.

But yeah, it was very touristy and I was there with a group of

classmates when I went to the Cliffs.

It was cool.

It was a really cool experience being in a big, well-known touristy spot.

But I think, the actual like wow factor of the cliffs I got from other places.

Amazing.

Caitlyn, I'll answer your question, but I'm so intrigued by the Czech Republic.

Can you describe it?

Do you regret it?

Did you love it?

I mean, that had to be so different than Western Europe.

It was very different.

Like I said, when it was first suggested to me.

I didn't even know where the Czech Republic was.

But I loved it, I think going there was the best decision

I've ever made in my life.

I'm going back there again in my life.

It is such a beautiful city.

I kept telling my friends, it's very Wes Anderson coded.

If you're a fan of those films, like there's a lot of pastel buildings.

It's very pretty.

There's this signature, like rusty red color that's on all the roofs.

And it's a very good mix of nature and city.

So there's Old Town, which is very tight alleyways, brick, cobblestone buildings.

But then my favorite part of Prague actually was this area called Petrin

Hill, which is this giant hill.

Probably as big if not bigger than the size of GVSU's campus.

And at the top is their version of the tiny Eiffel Tower and the hill

is as tall as the French Eiffel Tower, if you count the hill in how

tall their tiny Eiffel Tower is.

So I would walk around there a lot and there's apple trees and

there's no pesticides there.

So you can just pick the apples and eat them.

And I mean, check for worms.

And I would just go there and eat lunch and you can just see the whole city

up there and it was just so beautiful.

Wow.

That's so cool.

I've got so many questions for both of you, but I'll answer yours.

Obviously, I think I alluded to it, India was the biggest culture shock and

I went to four or five different parts of India and they were all so different and

each one took two days for me to wrap my head around where I was and I was there

during wedding season, which is really interesting because apparently wedding

season goes till five in the morning.

But it was pretty fascinating.

I will say from a culture shock and maybe even a homesickness standpoint,

through all the years of interviews with students after they had returned, it

was almost always harder to come back.

It was like the reverse homesickness is what everybody reported out for

the first six months of coming back.

And I wonder just because you're in this sort of different world and

space and perspective and society.

Did you guys experience that?

A hundred percent.

It's been hitting because I've only been back two months now and

I was there for three and a half.

Like, I can still close my eyes and see the street I lived on and see

the river and map out the routes.

Above my desk, I bought a painting in Prague before I left and it's of the

river, which is gorgeous and my favorite view and I'll look at it some days

and just wanna start crying because it became my home away from home.

And it was a weird bubble of my life where that was like my everything.

I miss it a lot.

like, I feel so lucky that I got to go, but there is a, bittersweetness with

the gratefulness that I had to leave it and come back and like I wanted to

cry at the airport on the way back.

Yeah, I think.

It is weird 'cause it's such a pocket, kinda like Caitlyn just

said, of your life, it's completely separate and I wanna go back so badly.

I think at the time I was a little bit like, okay, I've done my time.

Like I'm ready to come home.

Ever since then I've just been thinking how can I get back in my life?

I know I want to and like I got a ring there and I wear it every day.

Still kinda like Caitlyn's painting.

So yeah, I definitely experienced that.

I have yet to meet anyone who goes on a study abroad and doesn't

become a lover of travel afterwards.

And that was something I really wanted to prove to myself when I went, 'cause

my family was not a family that went on a lot of vacations when we were little.

I grew up in the suburbs and then coming to Grand Rapids was scary

to me, 'cause that was a big city.

And actually one of my like proudest moments was I was doing

a solo day trip to this, town in the south of the Czech Republic.

And so I get on my bus and the bus dropped me off in the completely wrong city.

I was two hours north of where I needed to be.

And this was halfway through my study abroad.

And if that had happened to me my first day, I probably

would've broke down crying.

But I looked around, I'm like, oh, this is the wrong city.

I Googled, where is train station?

And then I walked half an hour to the train station, got on a train, got

to the city I was supposed to go to.

I think study abroad gives you a lot of growth, and that was a moment for me where

it was like, okay, I've grown as a person.

Because stuff seems a lot less scary once you've done all these crazy

things you never thought you would do.

Yeah.

And how intimidating and unclear is public transportation when you get there.

And then how amazing is it that these cities have it?

I miss it so much.

Prague, I don't know if they lied about this statistic, but I was

told they have the third best public transport in the world and I feel

like my wings have been clipped.

'cause you could just find like a bus stop or a tram stop or the

metro in like 10 feet anywhere.

And we just don't have that infrastructure here and I miss it so much.

Oh my God.

There's trains everywhere.

I took so many trains, so many buses, I just, ugh.

I miss it.

And that's the cool thing about getting to Europe or anywhere, is once you get there,

you can go wherever you want on a train.

Pretty reasonably.

Usually.

Yeah, you can find a way to get there.

If you can get over the ocean, you can figure out where you wanna go.

Oh yeah.

I didn't, but I know a lot of people in my program who took really cheap flights

in their free weekends also from Ireland.

Pretty much every weekend we had a group chat from my program, and pretty much

every couple days someone would go, guys, I found $50 plane tickets to Romania.

Who wants to go to Transylvania in like two weeks?

And I'd be like, okay, let's go.

Did you do it?

Yes, I did.

Transyl vania is gorgeous.

I went to Dracula's Castle.

Did not get bit, I ate some garlic to be safe.

But it's absolutely stunning.

Yeah, I've heard Romania's something special.

I.

Hey, it's Randy.

We're taking a short break to tell you about the Morse-Cuppy

Film, Video, and Animation Study Abroad Endowed Scholarship.

The scholarship was established by Bill Cuppy with support from Deanna Morse to

help film, video, and animation students with the cost of studying abroad.

Alumnus Bill Cuppy talks about why he started the scholarship.

We created this scholarship because experiencing the world and other

cultures has been life-changing for us and we wanted students to

have a similar experience during this pivotal time in their lives.

Caroline Hamilton, the 2024 recipient of that scholarship, describes the

benefits of the support she received.

I'm a film video major and I have a German minor.

I've been studying German for about eight years now, and so I decided to

study abroad this past summer in Germany.

It definitely challenged me as a person.

I had to figure out how to do things and communicate and just

put me outta my comfort zone.

It introduces you to new things that you'd be afraid to experience because

you don't wanna embarrass yourself, but you have to just go for it.

The scholarship itself, just the almost permission to be

like, yes, go experience this.

Go learn, go see what happens, how this changes, how you see the world

and how you approach your work.

It took the pressure off of me a little bit to just be like, I can

experience this and not have to worry about everything else going on.

I can just go enjoy my time there and see what I can learn and grow from.

For more information, and to donate to the scholarship, visit

the link in the description.

Now back to the show.

I know I touched on it a bit, but for both of you, do you have a

moment where you traveled, where you learned something about yourself, or

you felt you grew in a certain way?

I think a lot of it was just becoming more independent and coming to terms with that.

I think I've always been a little bit of an independent person, but especially

when I was alone and just taking trains around and I met with a lot of people.

I met so many people there who were just amazed that me, at my young age of 21 at

the time was alone in a foreign country.

I think it really helped me grow into being comfortable alone and

being comfortable trying new things.

I've never historically been a big risk taker.

And not that I think study abroad's the biggest risk, but it was a big unknown.

Sure.

And so I think it really helped me get more comfortable with

different things like that.

So obviously all of us are in the film and video fields.

I don't have any official statistics on this, but I feel like in general, at

least at GV, film students are not a major that tends to go abroad quite as much in

comparison to like your education majors, your language majors, your history majors.

So to everyone, why do you think it is important, slash what can film majors and

video people get out of studying abroad?

Why is it important that they should try to study abroad if they can?

So much of filmmaking is at its root, just storytelling, and so I think in general,

just trying to get as many experiences as you can is just so valuable for being

able to tell as many stories as possible.

So that's why I think a lot of people should go.

As for why people don't, I know me personally, I also looked at a potential

program in France and everything I've heard about France and the

film world there, it intimidates me.

I think there's so much prestige surrounding different film industries

and film is so closely linked with different countries, cultures that

it's kinda scary to approach them.

And then also I think film, at least in film schools, it's so group work

oriented that it's kind of not on a lot of people's minds to solo travel because

they're just so used to working in a team.

And I could be completely wrong in that by all accounts, but I just

think it's just not something that.

Is often taught as an option.

I think you really nailed something I've been trying to think of

how to describe is I feel like there's a certain hustle culture.

And like the arts, you do this project and someone on that project

gets you on the next project and you can't leave and study abroad because

then you're gonna miss something.

And I think that was a big fear of mine.

Statistically speaking, yes, you will miss something when you study

abroad, it's just going to happen.

But in my mind, all the relationships, professional and otherwise you have, are

still gonna be there when you get back.

And this is an opportunity you'll likely never have again.

And adding on to another reason why I think people should is I

think it can expose you to films you might not otherwise get to see.

When I was in Prague, I watched a ton of Czech films, which are really

hard to find in the United States.

I took a Czech theory class, which showed me a bunch, and then I also found this

tiny theater that's similar to our Wealthy Theater that shows historical films.

And I went to every single screening that had English subtitles, and I

loved everything I saw and I'm so mad 'cause for the vast majority of it,

I can't show it to anyone else 'cause they don't have English releases.

And outside of the soft skills of learning to be more independent and

growing, I think it can expose you to like, elements of films that would be

harder to get, access to in the states.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I think you're right.

It is underutilized for film and video students.

I think before the scholarship that we created, I knew of one

and it was, quite some time ago.

But if you think about it, it's the perfect match.

I mean, we're all storytellers and this idea of being able to connect

with people across borders and being exposed to different ways of living

and thinking and creating, and then combine that with visual storytelling?

That's an experience that changes each of us, but also potentially all

of the viewers, all of our audiences.

It's almost a no brainer.

I mean, I'm lucky now I get to receive letters from people who

got the scholarship and hear about their experiences just a little bit.

It just brings me a lot of joy.

Investing in this sort of curiosity and creative expression and new

empathy is really powerful in the world we're living in right now.

A hundred percent I guess to everyone, my next question is what is

something you learned in your travels?

I think one thing I learned is there is a way out of any problem,

and you'll get there eventually.

Like there were times where trains were delayed and flights were missed, and you

get lost in the mountains and you get lost down the street and nobody speaks English.

I consider myself a pretty anxious person, but I actually didn't find

myself all that anxious in Europe because I just really adopted the

mindset of, oh, okay, I missed the train.

Let's go find the next train.

Or, oh, I don't know where I am.

Let's go try to find someone who speaks English or point to a map.

And I think that's a mindset I've taken with me coming back.

'cause that you'll figure it out eventually and you'll

get there when you get there.

I think I learned to be a lot more spontaneous.

'Cause I was there for such a short time and when I was going there, I

was like, well, I'll be in Limerick.

Maybe I'll go to some other places.

there's some planned day trips.

But then I got there, I think I was like halfway through the program and I

was just hit by how little time I had.

And so I started going on so many different day trips.

Originally I was planning on doing like two days here, two days here.

And I ended up going a day every different place.

And I think I've taken a lot of that back with me now.

especially 'cause now I'm in my last year of college also.

There's a lot of finality surrounding me right now.

I think I just taken a lot of go getting from study abroad and now I've been able

to apply that to my current life to not miss out on different opportunities.

I learned something every time I travel, and I've never been

fortunate enough to do a semester.

I've been able to do a lot, but I've learned mostly that some

things are just chaos and craziness and that works in that society.

I don't know how sometimes, and it would be hard for me to live like that,

but the majority of the time I just realized how civilized people are and

how sensible and frankly, how caught up we are sometimes here in strip malls

and highways and racing everywhere and not taking breaks and siestas and having

wine a little more often, et cetera.

Did either of you, pick your place because they had film and video specific

programming, or did you find that there, like, I wonder if that's a missing

element, if we could try to identify places that actually fit within the major?

When I was researching, I do think compared to some other majors,

there aren't quite as many courses.

A few did, but for me at least, it was something where, personally,

when I was looking at programs, it'd be nice if they have film classes.

But also for me, I am such a hustler.

Like I work very hard.

I like to move from next thing to next thing to the next thing.

And I knew as much as I love film, it was important for me to take

a bit of a break because there are other things in life besides film.

I need to step back.

And I was still able to do a little of that one film theories course.

But I agree with you that it can sometimes be a little hard to find film

classes, but I think you can find them.

And I also think even if it just taking, any class, there's value you can find

and there's stuff you can transfer over, even if it's not directly.

I think you're totally right.

That's a huge message is, get outta your world for a minute

and it's gonna help you later.

So I love that and I think maybe that's something that film and video students

might overlook because they're just on the grind to get their classes done.

I mean, there's so much more to it.

I ended up not going for film either.

It was a little bit on my mind when I was doing the initial program search,

but I ended up just picking the university because I liked the program

outside of film, but I actually ended up using film a decent amount there.

I was surprised by how much overlap there was in a seemingly not film related class.

Oh, cool.

I was in a, culture class and for one of the finals we had to retell a different

Irish myth and we could have done it any way, but we ended up making, it was like

a little reality TV show episode, and so I got to work with a group of people

and none of them were film related.

And so we divvied it up I was the show runner.

I was the editor.

I filmed everything, but it was cool to work in the film.

I love that.

That's Grand Valley's liberal education at work right there.

Exactly.

I did have one question I really wanted to ask everyone as my bingo free space

question because I feel part of the beauty of travel is you gain a bazillion stories

that you now get to share at one point.

So this is my bingo free space for everyone to tell a fun,

weird, or crazy travel story, and I know what mine has to be.

Me and like 14 other people in my program decided to go to Poland together.

So we all were in this hostel room on the fourth story of

this really narrow building with stairs that were not up to code.

And we had this gorgeous view of the town square, and it's our first morning

there and we wake up to trumpets.

We look outside and the Polish military is outside like lines

and lines and lines of soldiers.

And the day before we had gotten there, the Polish military

had shot down a Russian drone.

So we're like, oh my gosh, we're in Poland.

They always invade Poland first.

Do we need to start running?

So we're all screaming and running around.

And there was one European in the room with us and he pokes his head

out and he's like, no, no, no.

It's the hundredth anniversary of their first king.

It's a military ceremony.

We're fine.

We're fine.

And we're like, oh, okay.

We don't have to like run for our lives.

And then we got a lovely bird's eye view of a military ceremony in Poland,

but that was a fun, crazy moment that went from being a really scary

morning to a really fun morning.

Oh, This is so different, the first thing that came to my mind is when I was in

Galway, I tried this Chinese street food.

It's so different to your story.

It was the best I've ever had.

To this day, I dream about those noodles and the sauce.

I was only in Galway for two days and I had it for dinner both days.

I dream about them.

I've considered calling that place up.

That's my biggest memory, honestly.

Yeah, I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a. podcast

safe story to tell, I'll double down on Callie's to a different level.

That's probably just at least on the edge of podcast safe.

We did a trip, we started in Albania, 'cause we had two pretty prestigious

alums, working in government there.

They treated us to this special seafood dinner and it was their favorite chef.

And he came there from New York and he was the best chef in all of Tirana

Albania And it was six courses of crazy seafood, mostly shellfish.

So the squid comes out, the mussels, a couple things I didn't even know

and, I mean, I'm not loving it, but I also know that I'm gonna try

anything at least a no thank you bite.

But usually I'm gonna horse it down just because I wanna be polite.

They're taking us to this really nice restaurant.

And so we ate and I went home and about two in the morning, I got either some

sort of shellfish allergy or there was something wrong with one of 'em.

Oh no.

And we had a 7:00 AM flight to Bosnia.

We were going from Rome to Bosnia.

And so, yeah, I didn't sleep, not in the bed anyway.

And we connected in Rome and I had like a six hour layover

and, yeah, it was, brutal.

And then eventually I made it to Bosnia and I was fine.

But that was one of the stories, there's all sorts of travel

stories too, but, sorry.

Little gross.

That was a common occurrence.

A lot of people in my study abroad group had of eating something

bad right before they're stuck on a really, really long flight.

I guess the last thing I wanna emphasize and would love anyone else's opinions on

is I feel like something that a lot of people from applying to study abroad is,

the overwhelming size of it.

I know for me I had to apply for a Visa and that was a

very long, stressful process.

There's all this paperwork, but I really wanna emphasize that GVSU

has an amazing study abroad office, and they have a lot of resources.

I needed a form notarized for my Visa, and I'm like, where am

I gonna get a form notarized?

And I emailed them and they're like, oh, we do it.

So I really encourage you, if you are stressed, if you are lost in

anything, go to the study abroad office.

It is their job to help you.

They've done this before.

So please, please, please utilize that resource.

Oh my God.

They were a lifesaver.

When I was in my planning phase, I went to them so much.

They were so helpful.

Yeah, just walk in, they'll get you squared away.

They'll get you squared away

Bill, can you talk a little bit about the scholarship opportunities

for film video students?

So the scholarship, it's called the Morse Cuppy Film and Video

Study Abroad Scholarship.

My wife, Michelle and I started it probably seven years ago.

And our goal was just to get it to like.

30 to 50,000, which makes it endowed, which means that money

stays in a pot and never goes away.

And then we've had some really great success with, I feel like I'm

on a commercial right now, but I mean, this is good stuff for people

to know because it's out there.

And I guess I'm gonna backtrack a little, but did you guys know about it?

Did you apply for it?

I did know about it.

I applied during my senior thesis semester, so I don't remember if I to it.

'cause I was, I had almost no spare free time.

Yeah, I mean, it was probably sitting there ready for you.

I mean, people took it so it wasn't like it went to waste, so anyway,

we've had a great deal of support and then Deanna Morse stepped in.

She is a Professor Emeritus of animation at Grand Valley.

She actually happened to be one of my professors in the

late eighties, early nineties.

Along with, there was two other core professors.

And, she really ponied up and she's like, I really wanna add and ensure

that animation students know that this exists too, because it's an

incredible opportunity for them.

So can we just adapt the title to be, film and video and animation so that

everyone knows the opportunities there.

And so, all of our work and other people pitching in, we're currently

at like a hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars sitting in the

endowed scholarship for that.

And then recently I got a call that someone is willing to

anonymously, match up to 25,000 more in our upcoming campaign.

So the new goal is now to get it over 200,000, which means, I think currently

right now, we've got like $7,000 a year to go towards the scholarship

and we can get that to even more.

So I guess I just wanna say, anybody listening that's film and video,

this was created just for you.

My son Lucas, happens to be a film and video major, but I've told him he can't

apply 'cause that just wouldn't look good.

But the rest of you can.

Nobody regrets studying abroad unless they're super high maintenance or just

don't get it, but they're probably not looking to study abroad anyway.

Does anyone have anything else to add before we end this lovely podcast episode?

My big question for you guys is, had you traveled internationally

before you did study abroad?

Yes.

Okay, Canada doesn't really count in my opinion, but I had been there and when

I was in high school, I was really lucky and got to do a week long study abroad

to Costa Rica with my Spanish class, and that was really life changing and

that kind of started my love for travel.

And as soon as I was on the plane back, I was telling my

mom like, I have to do it again.

Need to go back.

How about you, Callie?

No, I mean, I've been to Canada, but I'm from southeast Michigan.

It takes less time to get to Canada from there than it does to get to here.

So that doesn't really count, like Caitlyn said, but I had never been abroad.

My parents had never been, my grandparents had never been.

So it was a really big step for me, I think.

Will you do it again?

Absolutely in a heartbeat.

I've been back, not to Ireland, but I've traveled internationally since, and I

would like to go so many places now.

My next place I wanna go is Peru, so that's on my to-do

list in the next couple years.

That's on mine too.

Oh

Let's go together, Callie.

Let's have a Peru trip.

Let's do it.

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