HAVANA (AP) -- A cruise ship carrying more than 600 U.S. college
                  students docked at this communist island on Monday, the latest in a growing
                  number of Americans who want to learn more despite their country's
                  decades-old trade sanctions against Cuba.

                  It was the second year in a row that the University of Pittsburgh's Semester
                  at Sea included Havana on the annual tour by the floating campus, which
                  also will include stops in Brazil, South Africa, Indian, Vietnam and Japan.

                  "Our students have the challenge of putting aside their ethnocentric beliefs...
                  and changing their opinions for a lifetime," said Les McCabe, chief
                  administrative affairs officer for the Semester at Sea program.

                  While true of all the countries the students will visit, it is especially true of
                  Cuba, a country that Americans know very little about, McCabe said.

                  Much of the trip will revolve around the Americans spending time with
                  Cuban students, giving them the opportunity to "share ideas, discuss and
                  learn about each other," he said.

                  Among those on the ship was Essence Ward, 20, a University of Pittsburgh
                  student who was so impressed by her visit last year that she came again.
                  This time she arrived as an intern working for a sister city program linking
                  Pittsburgh with Matanzas, Cuba.

                  She also came back with strong views about Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old
                  Cuban boy who has become the focus of an international custody battle
                  between his father in Cuba and his relatives in Miami.

                  "We have been rallying, holding press conferences and educating people in
                  Pittsburgh about the case," she said. "For us it is as simple as it is for the
                  Cubans: Elian must be returned to Cuba and to his family."

                  McCabe said many of the other students had not yet formed an opinion on
                  the case and that the Semester at Sea program did not have an official view,
                  preferring to let students form their own ideas.

                  The floating campus visited Cuba under a special license from the U.S.
                  Treasury Department.

                    Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.