Think about life in five years.

Twenty-five square feet. Picture that space. Look to your left and look to your right. Reach out your arms as far as you can. On either side you can touch a two-inch-thick wall made of cheap cloth and plastic.

Now think about Scotland. In some places, the highlands seem to stretch out further than the ocean. They are savage and comforting, idyllic and proud. The mountains hide waterfalls. Their water is cool and bitter.

Back to the walls: They are covered with photos of your children and Dilbert cartoons. You can't see anyone around you, but you can hear their sporadic typing. The nearest window is more than 40 feet away.

Think of Tokyo; the streets are ecstatic. Dizzying billboards scream for your attention. Cheap neon and cheaper sake assault every sense.

Now imagine eight to 12 hours of your day, and of what you could do with that time. Think about spending that time in a swiveling chair.

Now think of a helicopter landing in Alaska. Think about a falling glacier. Its impact with the turquoise water is breathless.

Go abroad while you can.

Travel is a flirtation with life, if you believe the saying. Unfortunately, at the University, it is often a drunken one - complete with a pricy hangover. Tuition is expensive. Studying abroad is more expensive. The wine-sweetness of reading Dante by the Bacchiglione, the melancholic skull gardens of the Khmer Rouge's Killing Fields - experiences like these are powerful and important. For too many students, they are displaced by brutally overblown airfare, tuition bills and strenuous graduation requirements.

Fortunately, there are options.

The University hosts a variety of free and cheap avenues for studying - or playing - abroad. While most of these programs are University-sponsored, they tend to rely primarily on word of mouth for publicity. Some are highly competitive, but most remain obscure and underused. For the ambitious and resourceful, the road less traveled is easy to come by.

Well-kept secrets

In the expansive new Palmer Commons, Coordinator of Multicultural Teaching and Learning A.T. Miller sits tucked away like a rare but precious artifact. His appearance immediately belies his love of the world. He wears two necklaces - both with undoubtedly fantastic stories attached - one from southwest America and the other from East Africa, where he spent eight years heading one of Kenya's approximately 400 Quaker high schools. Thin, tangled hair and a friendly demeanor call to mind the traditional depiction of Jesus. He is known for a charming quirkiness; he's rumored to have his students perform Kenyan chants.

From an obscure office on the fourth floor, he runs the four-year-old Global Intercultural Experience for Undergraduate Program (GIEU). It has a hefty name but a simple mission: to give more kids the chance to travel and to learn. Miller devised the program with Linda Gillum the former assistant provost for academic affairs, in the fall of 2001.

There are many barriers to studying abroad, Miller explained. Students in intensive programs, first generation students, and minorities are often unable or uncomfortable traveling. "People noticed that the (students) abroad were mainly LSA, mainly female, mainly white," Miller said.

GIEU opened in summer 2002. The program's organization and variety of options make it one of the most distinctive in the country. "You can probably find the pieces of it at other places," Miller said, "but it won't be structured the same way."

One of the most remarkable features of GIEU is its financial structure. Students pay airfare and a program fee, but because GIEU is technically a paid internship, they generally recoup these costs. "We wanted to make sure it's not just people who can afford to do these things," Miller said, "About forty percent of our students are on financial aid."

Students earn $360 per week, as assistants in research.

Students apply to the program and are then assigned a site after an extensive matching process. Though students tend to get their first or second choice, this uncertainty can be daunting: "There's always student who end up going somewhere they weren't thinking of. If you want to go to a particular place, go to OIP," Miller said. "We think about the broader skills."

GIEU also takes academic pressures into account. The program provides two general studies credits - one taken before the field program and one after.

The diversity of program sites - Alaska to Zimbabwe - and themes - activism to zoology - is due to GIEU's practice of accepting program proposals from instructors of all fields and levels.

Rackham student Annie Hesp is one such instructor. Six years ago, Hesp returned to Spain to finish her Master's degree.