Halle Schlather had heard about apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Cambodia, but only after she saw the “Whites Only” signs and walked by human bones left to rot did she understand the suffering in those countries.

“South Africa felt like what America would have felt like in the 1960s, when there was still a lot of prevalent racism,” said Schlather, a senior at University of Maryland, College Park. “In Cambodia, I saw bones left in the killing fields and [learned] the history of Pol Pot. It was pretty gruesome.”

Schlather learned these worldly lessons during her Semester at Sea this past spring, when she and five other U.Md. students circumnavigated the globe, visiting Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, China and Hawaii.

Dressed in traditional Indian clothes, Schlather and her friends explored Bombay, visited a Hare Krishna temple and joined strangers for a holiday feast.

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“The people there were so genuine,” said Schlather, 21. “We could learn lessons from them about hospitality.”

Before becoming a modern-day Magellan, the international business and government major had visited only Canada and the Caribbean.

Forty-two colleges throughout Maryland partner with the Institute for Shipboard Education for the Semester at Sea program, including Goucher College, Hood College, Anne Arundel Community College, Baltimore City Community College and Loyola College, according to the institute.

Students from across the nation earn transferable class credits from the University of Virginia, which partners with the institute, said Michael Zoll, the institute’s vice president of enrollment and student affairs.

Participating students often praise the ship, saying they avoid cabin fever by swimming in the pool, watching movies in the student union and exercising in the gym.

“It’s like a floating dorm,” Schlather said.

kvolkmann@baltimoreexaminer.com