Growth through Greece
10/30/2025
“We figured out how to present our work as if we were presenting to a company, which built a new set of skills for me. There was a little bit more behind-the-scenes work that I got to be involved in," said Hazelton.
From Bluffton to Athens, Finding Confidence Through Study Abroad
Cami Hazelton ‘26, a studio art major, studied for a semester at the American College of Greece (ACG) in Agia Paraskevi, Greece, and sees it as the best time of her life.
While Hazelton was there, she lived in an apartment with 6 other students, offering a 10-minute walk from the ACG campus and a 30-minute metro ride from the capital city of Athens.
Hazelton took this opportunity to fulfill her cross-cultural requirement but hadn’t initially thought about studying abroad. Her first-year roommate Emily Walker, who also took part in this semester long trip, had been the one to “open her eyes” to this opportunity.
“It wasn’t really until the end of our sophomore year that I was like, ‘You know what? I want to go with you.’ And that was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Hazelton said. “It was kind of a last-minute decision, but I wanted to take this step and venture out.”
During Hazelton’s semester, she made traveling a priority. She went to London, Poland, Amsterdam, Italy and traveled within Greece itself.
“My time there forced me to come out of my shell and make new friends, because I didn’t have many people to rely on,” she said. “It was such a great experience that I didn’t want to waste it by being a homebody.”
Hazelton took 15 credit hours of art classes at ACG, all of which counted towards her major at Bluffton University.
She loved the professors as well as the class structure, which was very independent. Hazelton not only honed her artistic skills, but she also learned about “the logistics, research, and the process of how art can become a real product.”
“Every week, we had to make a presentation and show our progress and then go into town and print our own materials, which was nice because that’s how it will be in the real world,” Hazelton said. “We figured out how to present our work as if we were presenting to a company, which built a new set of skills for me. There was a little bit more behind-the-scenes work that I got to be involved in.”
Hazelton not only learned skills in the classroom; she learned lasting personal lessons too.
“I learned that I can be independent and that I can really put myself out there and get through some tough things,” said Hazelton confidently. “I was more capable than I thought I was.”
Hazelton made cross-cultural relationships in the simplest of places, her housing assignment. Her roommates consisted of six girls, three who were from the northeast United States, one from Iran, one from Syria, and her first year Bluffton roommate.
“It was really cool having all these other girls with us, because they would try to teach us Arabic some nights and then we would try to teach them more about American culture, and it was just really nice, all these different cultures coming together while in Greece at the same time, experiencing a whole new culture in that way too.”
If she wasn’t graduating from Bluffton this spring, she would go back and do another semester at ACG. “I would recommend it to everyone, because it’s an experience I’ll never forget. If you’re thinking about going to Greece, do it.”
-Coen North ‘26