Granted, the average summer-school student is in his or her 20s, but there are enough 30-70 year- olds around to make everyone feel at ease. And about half of the participants do have some ties with Norway, although the other half could barely place it on a map before their letter of acceptance. And most certainly it’s an academic summer program at the university level, but there’s also lots of time for outside activities and just plain having fun.
The summer school in question is the University of Oslo’s International Summer School (ISS). Founded over 40 years ago as a summer school for American students, the ISS has since developed into a very international summer school, drawing students from a multitude of backgrounds and countries.
I should know; I’ve attended twice.
Although the make-up of the student body has shifted throughout the program’s 40 years, its focus never has. The summer school’s main purpose is that of any accredited university-level educational body, but this program has one additional purpose—fostering international friendship.
The 12,000-plus students who have attended the International Summer School throughout its 41 seasons have come from over 121 different countries and are as varied as the people of the world. They come with turbans and saris, blue jeans and Walkmans, sandals and dhotis. They are brown-eyed, blue-eyed, straight haired, kinky-haired, and sometimes even bald. They are male and female and range in age from 20 (minimum age) to well beyond “middle age”. About one-third of the students still come from the U.S. and Canada; the others from lands as diverse as China and Zambia.
During the day, you attend classes, but in the afternoon and evening, you talk, travel, and make the world a little bit smaller. The unofficial motto of the ISS is “Friendliness, Frankness, and Tolerance”, and a good part of the six-week program is designed to get you to mix, whether it be on the soccer field, or in a bus touring Telemark. By term’s end, there’s more than one tearful parting between students who come from lands of historic intolerance or indifference.
In the words of Chakufwa Chihana, Executive Secretary of the Southern African Trade Union Coordination Council and former student of the International Summer School is “to be welded together with students from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas into a peaceful community—in which (all) share the same notions of peace, excitement, and knowledge.”
Sound like your sort of summer? It was mine. For further information on this summer’s program (June 25-August 5), write: Oslo International Summer School, North American Admissions Office, c/o St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN 55057. The basic fee is $1,775, which covers full room and board. There is no tuition fee. Participants are urged to live on campus, but a limited number of off-campus participants are admitted each year for those who already have friends or relatives living in the Oslo area with whom they can reside (fee $435).
Almost all of the courses are taught in English. In addition to general courses on Norwegian art, literature, history, music, politics, economics and social services, there are also short-term graduate courses of interest to professionals (health care, energy planning, peace research, physical education, special education). See you there?
Published in “Transitions Abroad”, March 1988