Over Spring Break, a select group of Loomis Chaffee students had the opportunity to travel to Morocco and Spain through the International Education Program, offered yearly by the Alvord Center for Global and Environmental Studies.
On the Morocco trip, students traveled all over the country and had an incredible opportunity to immerse themselves in the local culture.
Mariia Zhukova ’26 highlighted their busy itinerary. “We landed in Casablanca and drove immediately to Rabat, which is the capital, then from Rabat to Fes, which is one of the oldest cities,” she said.
Zhukova added, “My favorite place was the Casablanca market; there were a lot of vendors, it felt very clean and open, and a pretty mosque was there. All of it was different from Loomis and where I had been before.”
She claimed that learning about Moroccan culture was extremely interesting to her and something she probably wouldn’t have done if Loomis hadn’t presented the opportunity.
“I love learning about [the] culture and how old [the country’s] history was,” she said. “When we went to Fes, we went to the oldest university in the world, which was founded there in the ninth century. It was really interesting finding out about their deep academic roots, and it was cool to see how people learned in the past and in other countries.”
Zhukova mentioned that she went on the trip to fulfill the requirements for her Global and Environmental Studies Certificate (GESC). Most Alvord Center programs, including this year’s trips to Spain and Morocco, are eligible to satisfy the experiential education aspect of the certificate.
Lily Glasser ’27, who traveled alongside Zhukova on the trip, said, “My favorite place we went was Rabat, which was extremely fun. We got to walk around the markets and talk to locals, have dinner with Moroccan high school students, and even go to a nearby city and see the sea.”
“Going on a trip with your school is such an educational experience,” Glasser added. “I learned a lot of Arabic, which I had never spoken before, and improved greatly on my French skills”
In Spain, students got to explore and immerse themselves in Spanish culture while traveling to Andalucia—a region of Southern Spain—and cities like Cordoba, Malaga, and Grenada.
Maleah Cogle ’26 takes Spanish at Loomis and signed up for the Spain trip to practice her language skills while simultaneously fulfilling her GESC requirement.
“I really liked meeting all the different people and getting to walk around different shops and learning about the history and the country that we were in,” she said. “There are a lot of cultural differences, the architecture was amazing, and it really helped me understand just how much history is relevant today.”
Throughout the trip, students not only learned about Spanish history and culture but also incredible technological advancements. Katherine Geoghan ‘27 recalled, “We studied how water is transported and used in a desert climate and how they efficiently supply water to everybody using things like public wells.”