From Cape Town to Milan, CSULB students return home with stories to tell
Interior design student Hailey Bisbee had been in Cape Town three weeks when she sat down to write about it. She had stood above the clouds on Table Mountain, watched penguins at Boulders Beach, learned to make samosas in a local woman’s home and interned at a nonprofit aiding autistic adults.
“I have proved to myself that I can travel, live and work internationally,” she wrote. “I can hike, swim, learn, dance, eat, travel, work, laugh, love and cry in a 24-hour span.”
Across the world this summer, Cal State Long Beach students did some version of the same thing: reflecting on what they had learned during internships, studios, laboratories and field schools thousands of miles from The Beach. As many now make their way back to campus, we asked five groups to share some of what they saw, learned and brought home with them.
‘Out of my comfort zone’
In Cape Town, Bisbee and 12 others worked a variety of internships while learning about a country still shaped by the legacy of apartheid. Accompanied by Graphic Design Professor Tanya Cummings and open to all majors, the program took students to sites such as Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, when they weren’t interning for local organizations and program through a partnership with VACorps.
For photography student Skylar Bush, that meant working at Bush Radio.
“My internship at Bush Radio pushed me out of my comfort zone in ways I didn’t expect,” Bush said. “This experience has not only expanded my understanding of the world but has also helped me better envision the kind of environments I want to be part of in the future.”
'A much better understanding'
Anthropology student Justine Dollar joined an ethnographic field school in Hubei — a province in China — accompanied by Professor Steven Rousso-Schindler and Associate Professor R. Scott Wilson.
Dollar's group built its 20-minute film around color, pairing the Tujia art of tea making with traditional green clothing so the cloth carried the vividness of the tea. She spent much of the trip in the editing room, learning to cut from a Chinese student and skilled sound mixer who talked her through the process and made room for her ideas.
"I now have a much better understanding and respect for the broader aspects of ethnographic film production," she wrote.
‘Does not get better than this’
In Hamburg, Cinematic Arts students spent their time immersed in 3-D audio, working at mixing consoles and experimenting with sound within HAW Hamburg’s media technology program.
“Hamburg gave me hands-on experience with professional tools such as Reaper, and full creative freedom within innovative 3-D audio,” said fourth-year student Juan Perez. “Education does not get better than this.”
For Bea Tan ’25, the experience changed the way she thought about her field.
“Learning and mixing in 3-D audio reinvigorated my passion for post-production,” she said. “Professor [Ben] Huff encouraged us to lean into our curiosities, work together and push the boundaries of storytelling through sound.”
‘Especially meaningful moment’
In Paris and Montpellier, robotics students visited universities, research laboratories, technology companies and rehabilitation programs. Led by Emel Demircan, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace, the students encountered social robots, prosthetics, exoskeletons and assistive technologies — and saw repeatedly how quickly the field is changing.
“There was an especially meaningful moment that reminded me why this work matters,” recalled Mia Carter, a computer science major. “We saw a patient stand and walk using a wearable exoskeleton robot, bringing his wife to tears of joy . . . This experience has made me even more excited about the field of robotics and has given me new perspectives and ideas that I will carry into my future studies.”
‘Will last a lifetime’
In Milan, fashion students stepped inside an industry they ordinarily study from California, visiting the Missoni archive, Milan studios and design museums and taking part in an embroidery workshop.
“The connections they made with local culture, fashion heritage and each other created memories and learning opportunities that will last a lifetime,” said Marine Aghekyan, a faculty member in the Fashion Merchandising and Design Program, who led trips to both Milan and Paris.
Five countries, five very different itineraries.
For Bisbee, the measure of the summer came down to something simpler. Again and again in Cape Town, she recalled, one student would turn to another and say the same thing:
“I feel at peace.”
