This summer, students will be doing more than sleeping until noon and seeing every movie at Bethesda Row. They are making the most of the 10 weeks by traveling abroad for summer programs, volunteering in communities, or getting work experience with internships.

Sophomore Olivia Blanchard is seeking adventure on a six-week scholarship exchange program to Kazan, Russia. She will be traveling with the State Department and learning the language and culture at different Russian universities.

“I’ll be living with a host family and there will probably be excursions to the different sites and touristy things around Russia,” Blanchard said.

Ten thousand kilometers south and 150 hours away from Kazan, sophomore Jake Schwartz will be in Sironko District, Uganda, teaching children at the Buyobo Primary School for three weeks. Special education teacher Laurie Safran and her husband, Jim Cannon, will chaperone the group, which includes students from Whitman and other local schools. The group will help teach English, science, and math to elementary school students.

Schwartz and the other participants will also be completing service projects for the school, such as building a basketball hoop and fixing-up the classrooms. Schwartz decided to go on the trip because his sister, senior Josie Schwartz, went on the same trip in 2012.

“When she went it was a life-changing experience, so that’s what I wanted it to be,” Jake Schwartz said.

While Schwartz is helping a community in another continent, sophomore Aya Gandolfo will be volunteering closer to home, at Sibley Hospital. She will shadow a breast cancer surgeon, observe surgeries, and do paperwork.

Gandolfo won’t be earning SSL hours for her service. She is only looking to help out and gain knowledge about how hospitals operate.

“I’m really interested in surgery and I want to see what it’s really like because I haven’t been exposed to it,” Gandolfo said.

She is most looking forward to observing the surgeries because she wants to be a cancer, heart, or brain surgeon in the future.

As Gandolfo learns the science of surgery, sophomore Joseph Grunwald will be in the Southern Hemisphere, attending an all-male preparatory school and experiencing the culture and language of South Africa.

Grunwald will be going on an exchange program along with sophomore Bryna Steele and junior Saveena Suri to Capetown, South Africa. Social studies department head Robert Mathis annually organizes this exchange program.

Grunwald will stay with a host student and take classes at his host’s school. Grunwald also has the option to choose his own class schedule, which could include learning native South African languages, such as Afrikaans and Xhosa.

Among other activities, Grunwald will participate on school sports teams and take trips to iconic sites, such as the prison where former South African President Nelson Mandela was held.

The final student destination is Montpellier, France, where juniors Chris Mason, Caleb Kushner, and Lino Nunez del Arco will be interning for a month at a biotech company. The three will be staying in an apartment with a Greek graduate student who will be attending one of the local universities.

On weekends they plan to visit Barcelona and Paris, Mason said. They will also be heading to the beaches on weeknights.

Unlike the other students going on trips or volunteering this summer, Mason, Kushner and Nunez del Arco will be forced to be more independent.

“Being self-sufficient for a whole month may end up being a challenge,” Mason said. “But I’m definitely up for the task.”