Walkabout:

Sikkim, India

Baylor students who participate in the annual spring break trip to India have the rare opportunity to experience traditional Tibetan religion and culture before it completely disappears. Students are immersed in the culture – studying Tibetan religion, hiking trails bordering Nepal and the Himalayan mountains, and participating in a service project building sanitary facilities in a village of Sikkim.

According to Tim Williams, walkabout director and an Eastern Religions teacher, the trip defines Baylor's approach to experiential education and is directly tied to the school's mission statement to instill in students the desire and ability to make a positive difference in the world. "In order to do that we take our students out into the world – very remote corners of the world that are different in every possible way from our life of privilege behind the gates of Baylor," Tim says. "The time they spend in the classroom studying Tibetan Buddhism takes on a profound meaning while speaking to a lama on the steps of a 1,000-year-old monastery in the Himalayas."

Students who express an interest in the trip are required to go through a screening process. "We're looking for students who are genuinely interested in experiencing another culture," says Tim. "It is a physically and emotionally demanding month. This isn't about going to ride the elephants."