Lost and Found
Sometimes we get LOST in immersive experiences, forgetting the worries and stresses of everyday life, or even losing ourselves as we learn to see the world through the eyes of others. Sometimes we FIND ourselves in new places, and discover things we may never have seen or known about the world, and about ourselves.
Come inside and be introduced to some of the places where CSUSB students, faculty, and staff have lost and found themselves, and been forever changed by travel.
Look around, explore, and discover a study abroad or study away opportunity that’s right for you!
Photos submitted for this exhibition are presented on “scrapbook” pages crafted to evoke different themes, locations, and experiences. Please use the exhibit map to help guide your journey.
Curators: Daniel Zepeda, Matthew Lowry, Giovanna de Souza
Fabrication: Kaylah Borrowman, Andrea Simpson, Julie Vidaurri
Communications Manager & Education: Kaytlin Howard
Graphic Design: Wendy Fierro
Logistical Support: Alcira Mendoza
Other Assistance: Lisset Acoeda, Josefine Pettit
Faculty supervisor: Arianna Huhn
The original Lost & Found concept was developed by Dr. Cherstin Lyon
Exhibition Sections
1 Technoscape Technological advancements are spreading throughout the world. These new technologies are being integrated into cultures in different ways and to different degrees. Case in point: China.
2 Set Your Compass Service learning fuels many people to travel -- seeing new places, but also providing some sort of assistance for people there who are in need. These projects undeniably aid communities around the world. But, they often impact the volunteers just as profoundly. In these communities, we find ourselves. In togetherness we find fullness and beauty.
3 Lessons From the Field “The field” is a term used to reference research experience away from home. Research conducted in “the field” can be wildly unpredictable, as opposed to a controlled lab setting The hands-on experience and training-through-doing can also be life-changing. For some, the data spurn new insights. For others, the thrill of “the field” becomes addictive. Sometimes the experience proves less than enchanting, and leads to new directions.
4 Finding Forgotten Paths With the routine of everyday life -- the deadlines, the traffic, the constant movement -- it is easy to lose our way. When removed from these routines we can find new peace and understanding in ourselves and the world around us. Traveling to distant places gives us the opportunity to slow down and revive our wonder with the world.
5 Global Community The faculty-led study abroad program in South Africa focuses on educating CSUSB students about the contexts and conditions through which injustices emerge. Students tour communities, visit museums, and meet advocates fighting against local, national, and global inequalities.
6 Finding Home Exploring the world allows us to examine and experience aspects of other ways of life. While doing so, we can find ourselves faced with surprising familiarity that reminds us that the feeling of home can be found even far away.
7 Hands on Education One of the benefits of student travel is the ability to see, breathe, and live the theories, methods, and analyses that can only be read about at home. No matter how dynamic a classroom instructor, nothing matches a physical, visceral, and emotive experience for generating interest in a subject, broadening capacities for understanding multiple perspectives, and otherwise bringing academic study to life.
8 Nature’s Lessons We cover our world with concrete and metal, making roads and sidewalks, houses and schools. Nature is confined to planter boxes and parks, and the soundscape is filled with machinery and traffic. Stepping back from these cityscapes to appreciate and interact with our environment, rather than to conquer or tame it, can be a humbling and awe-inspiring opportunity to recognize our smallness, our fragility, our dependence, and our oneness with nature.
9 Strength through Struggles Struggle is a part of daily life. But for some, the challenges they face are more constant and more intense. Travel can foster recognition of both the privilege in our lives, and the strength of those who have less.
10 Culture Shock Travel away from the familiars of home, and you are likely to experience culture shock -- that feeling of disorientation or being lost that comes from being engulfed by unexpected and unfamiliar attitudes, behaviors, and customs. Even where something seems familiar, it may surprise you that it is not. With these challenges a traveler often feels out of place. With time a traveler learns to appreciate, anticipate, and even crave these new ways of living, seeing, and relating to others.
11 Seeking Adventure Traveling gives us the opportunity to experience and to see things we might not have even known existed! Plan your own adventure, and discover for yourself just how big of a place our world is.
12 Unbroken Hardship isn’t exclusive to any place, nor is the ability to help those in need. At home and abroad, we are always surrounded by opportunities to lend a helping hand. Through these experiences we might learn about ourselves, too -- in something that appears broken, we find character and strength.
13 Trekking the World Travel is in part about the destination, but it is also about the journey. From the moment we embark to the moment we return home, travel is full of adventure.
14 Missing Piece By immersing yourself in the abundance of new sights, emotions, and experiences created through travel, it can be easy to lose sight of who you are. You can feel small and insignificant, but travel also provides the opportunity to find a part of yourself that you never realized was missing, and to discover your place in the world.
15 Building Connections The complexities and nuances of lived realities can be flattened or erased in textbook learning. Study abroad embeds the curriculum within lived experience, making learning more memorable and impactful because it is felt and seen rather than just imagined.
16 Past and Present Sometimes it’s difficult to feel a connection with the past -- battles fought long ago feel distant and impersonal, historical personalities are unrelatable, and the progression of dates and names in textbooks feel rote and dull. But when we travel to historic sites -- when we smell the damp quarters of an ancient building, see the vastness of a battle’s cemetery, or experience the wonder of architectural grace -- the past comes alive within us.
17 Adventure Calls One of the benefits of year-long study abroad programs is the opportunities they present for travel -- not only to the host university, but to countless new cities and countries, and to visit the homes of friends we make along the way. Where might your study abroad adventure take you?
18 Home Across Borders Sometimes as we cross borders and boundaries meant to separate people from one another, we find ourselves unexpectedly comforted by encountering the familiar. This sense of home can help us to recognize what we have in common, and the many ways we are connected to one another through common histories, interests, and simple hospitality.
19 Continuity and Connections Rituals, ceremonies, and other traditions passed down between generations and across the centuries can inspire awe. They can make us feel like we are lost in time or space --we have journeyed to the past, or the past has somehow juxtaposed itself upon the present. . While we cannot always understand their meanings, we can feel the significance of ideas, relations, and connections that ancient places and practices enshrine.
20 Invitation to Experience While exploring the world, we find ourselves surrounded by people living their daily lives. Sometimes we are given the opportunity to step into their world, and maybe even to learn beside them.
21 Travel’s Treasures The experience of leaving home for an unfamiliar destination can change your perspective forever. The knowledge and experience you gain is a priceless treasure. Sometimes the takeaways are tangible, too.
22 New Horizons Every day brings new beginnings, new business, new sorrows. In India, these days often center on the Ganges River, which draws in locals and tourists alike.
23 From Deficit to Indebted When we look around the world, many define other places and peoples in terms of what they lack -- access to clean water, educational opportunities, equal rights, affordable housing … There can be an urge to try to “fix” these places, or at least to feel sorry for their inhabitants. Such a deficit-based lens can inspire important individual and collective action. But it can also blind us to a place’s strengths -- the resilience of its people, the beauty of its landscapes, the humanity of its practices -- such that we come to recognize our own deficits and find ourselves indebted to the places we visit for what it is that they teach us and what they have to offer the world.
24 Resistance & Remembrance Those who have spent the majority of their lives in the US are sometimes guilty of taking freedoms and opportunities for granted. Travel helps us to gain perspective by introducing evidence of the efforts that others around the world have taken to establish, defend, and maintain individual and collective rights -- historical and ongoing.
25 Travel Buddies In the U.S., we are taught to always look out for number one -- ourselves. We are so focused on our work and our successes that we can forget the value of face-to-face, genuine interaction with others. Through travel, we’re sometimes lucky enough to regain a sense of community through the bonds we forge with fellow sojourners and our hosts.
26 Eye Opening When we travel we see new things, meet new people, have new experiences, and gain new perspectives. These opportunities make it possible to evaluate our assumptions, see alternative possibilities, and reconfigure understandings of our place in the world.