#Semester@Sea – Students from the University of Virginia, USA are on a 66-day long Semester at Sea voyage on board the Explorer, which is to dock in Dublin Port this morning, and where she will stay for the next five days, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The 'floating campus' that is of the 24,000 tonnes Explorer which was built as a cruiseship in 2001 had sailed from Greenock overnight.

The Semester at Sea programme of the Institute for Shipboard Education, is sponsored by the University of Virginia. Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819, the university is one of the USA's most prestigious institutions of higher education.

Twice a year she circumnavigates the world and explores a region each summer. On this 2014 voyage, 11 cities and 10 countries in northern Europe form the Semester at Sea programme which set sail last month from Southampton in the UK and having also called to Bilbao and Lisbon.

So what facilities are to be found on ship serving some 2000 students annually and to meet their educational and residential requirements? Asides the obvious need for 'classrooms' click HERE, there is a 9,000-volume library, computer laboratory, wireless-internet access, and a student's union venue in addition to many of the amenities you'd expect on a land-based campus.

Students have a unique opportunity during the Semester at Sea to engage in global comparative education.

On each voyage, a set of Global Comparative Lens courses are designed to help students deepen their understanding of specific features of life and culture in the countries of the voyage itinerary.

Among the lens offerings is a field study visit tomorrow of the Hill of Tara and Bru na Boinne Visitor Cente, which forms part of the course, Foundational Religions of Europe: From Odin to Allah.

Following her Irish call, the semester sails to Scandinavian and Baltic ports, among them St. Petersburg. The voyage will also include a transit of the Kiel Canal and a stopover to the Polish city of Gdansk before returning to the UK next month.