Living on a ship is a foreign experience to most of us. Each Semester at Sea voyage, a new group of students experience the (sometimes literal) ups and downs and new found challenges of studying, attending class, eating, exercising, walking down a hallway and everything else inherently different aboard a ship. It's a lifestyle that feels simultaneously familiar and incredibly different and unexpected. Rather than trying to explain this duality, we want to show you. Below, staff photographer Rafael Aguilera takes us through several hours in the life of a Short Term 2012 Semester at Sea student embarking for their first day aboard the MV Explorer. If you can recall your first day of college, this will be as surprising as it is familiar. -John Vieira
