"In August 2016, I embarked on my journey abroad. A few short months beforehand I decided that I wanted to make the most out of my experience in Madrid. I wanted to experience Spain in a way that was non-traditional and leave an everlasting footprint on the community in which I was continuing my educational journey. For me, an internship seemed like the perfect opportunity to pursue my passions abroad. While my peers looked for internship opportunities that would compliment their resumes or align with their academic goals, I looked for one that would align with my goals for the future of our youth.

For quite some time I have been passionate about improving the quality of education for the youth in my city. My hometown, Detroit, is a place where many students go without the educational benefits that are awarded to the students in neighboring suburbs, where students aren’t provided adequate books to read, the water sometimes runs brown, and college seems to be an excellent place, but one that is unattainable for inner-city youth. Since last summer, I have made it my life goal to continuously contribute to my community by making sure that youth are not denied their right to an excellent education because of their socioeconomic background; with the IES Abroad Internship program I worked to reverse this stigma and create a generation of youth that would excel.

This past semester I worked with in the Social Services Center of Los Yébenes (a neighborhood in Spain) with a program called Asociación Edúnica where the mission was to encourage students who come from non-traditional families to excel academically by receiving the academic, psychological, and social support necessary to be well-rounded students, because for them, the problem is not that they are incapable of learning or that they don’t want to, but that the obstacles that they are faced with daily sometimes distract them from their education. Therefore, as an after-school tutor and mentor, my goal was to provide them with an environment in which they could express themselves openly and receive help with whatever obstacle stood in their path.

While some people may view an internship of this class as something of minor impact, in my opinion, I have just changed the world. For me, it is not quantity, but quality that matters. Although I may have only worked with twenty kids of Madrid in order to make them better citizens, I have essentially impacted the entire world because I was a part of cultivating the world’s next doctors, brain surgeons, teachers, firemen, soup kitchen volunteers, and global citizens who will use what I have taught them to shape the world of tomorrow. By encouraging one student to become eager instead of discouraged to study, I changed the path of one student and though it may not be many, that one student going down the right path could be the one student that will change lives. While my support may not have been life changing for every student, what will stick with them is that someone cares and supports them in all that they do and with that they will able to accomplish things that will shape their community for the better.

When I sought out to change the lives of children who the world deems less-fortunate (I deem them to be just as fortunate as anyone else), I didn’t realize that mine would be changed too. I didn’t realize that I would find my purpose or that they would inspire me to become a global change agent. After I left Madrid I thought a lot about my experience. I thought about how many of the students expressed to me that they had never had anyone who cared about their future as much I did, how they didn’t have anyone that they could talk to openly, and how their lives had been forever changed. While I missed my students dearly, I thought about how many other students in this world felt the same pain and lived the same struggle: they were born into a life where resources were limited, faith was low, and support was no where to be found. I began to become angry at the thought that children were not receiving the support that they needed due to a situation that they could not control. That is when I realized that being angry about it wouldn’t alter their disadvantage, but doing something about it would! From here on out I decided that I would translate that anger to determination and bring my contribution abroad to my own community - I decided that I would not let global change end there.

This summer, I will be working as a servant leader intern with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School, an organization that has dedicated over 100 years of service to ensuring that children around the world are provided with an education that will allow them to achieve their wildest dreams. Working in neighborhoods where children would not normally have the privilege to receive books, I will be nurturing children in order to cultivate their love for reading and encourage them to become leaders and global change agents. Freedom Schools is more than a 6-week opportunity for the children that I will be impacting; for many students it is a place to belong, a place to be appreciated, and a place to be loved despite their day-to-day environment. Through this program I plan to continue to advocate for our youth around the world and teach them that with determination, effort, and compassion they can be anything despite all doubt that they have experienced in the past. In the near future I plan to dedicate my summers to impacting the lives of more and more youth everyday while continuing to volunteer with Asociación Edúnica in the upcoming semester, but ultimately I hope to start a non-profit organization that will give youth who’ve made mistakes, youth who have faced criminal charges, a second chance.  The youth are our future. The youth are my passion. All youth deserve a fair chance. The IES Abroad program taught me this."

My primary academic interests lie in global relations and development, and accordingly, I have tried to structure my academic coursework and internship experiences around these topics. This exploration has led me to a broad range of development economics and health-related classes at my home university, Williams College, in addition to community service work in Haiti and past internships conducting global HIV/AIDS communications and research at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and managing a citizen journalism program in Tel Aviv aimed at empowering young professionals and students across sub-Saharan Africa.

As I have begun to realize my passion for global citizenship, I am keen to equip myself with the skills and knowledge base to most effectively immerse myself in future experiences. Given the increasingly interconnected nature of our world, having young, ambitious students wrestle with pressing, global issues is critical to ensuring our successful future. I want to produce high social impact work and embraced my abroad experience in Vienna as an opportunity to grow as a learner and cosmopolitan. I am unsure of which path will enable me to best develop and utilize my proficiencies, and wanted to make the most out of my time abroad by bolstering my German language ability and cultural immersion through comprehensive internship.

I began work at the European Environmental Bureau in late-September unsure of my specific assignments and what responsibilities I would be entrusted with during my internship. The EEB is an umbrella environmental NGO based out of Brussels which represents the environmental voice of Europe’s civil society and citizenry. Comprising 140 member organizations across all the EU-member states, it intends to agglomerate and champion civil society interests in the environmentally related proceedings, negotiations, and legislation of the European Union. It is clearly an expansive and impactful organization, and accordingly, I was eager to begin work here and hopefully produce material change by helping them reach certain project goals. Yet equally nervous about the learning curve and to what degree I would be familiar with the content to which I was assigned. Upon my arrival, I was asked to help develop their “Circular Economy Platform Austria”, which as a central database and knowledge exchange center, aims to facilitate an Austrian transition to a circular economy through multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral engagement.

A circular economy purpose is to minimize waste at every step of the production and consumption process with hopes of creating a self-sufficient economic system that optimally uses natural resources and commodities. Although several European circular economy initiatives are already underway, the creation of the “Circular Economy Platform Austria” would represent a pioneer effort within Austria and the European Environmental Bureau to create a national platform. This project is primarily concerned with catalyzing the transition in Austria, however, since it draws on a diverse pool of best practice examples and research across Europe, if successful it can hopefully be used as a model for replicative EEB-driven circular economy transitions across the EU. This possibility excites me and has motivated to produce my best work. My work will contribute to a project which through generalization or extrapolation can potentially have wide-reaching consequences for Europe and its future environmental landscape.

Our primary piece of writing for this platform is a twenty-page project description outlining our mission, implementation methods, and cooperation partners, as well as a brief background of a circular economy’s intentions and current application in Europe. This project summary has been used thus far to receive sponsorships to financially aid our platform’s creation and will be the primary information we provide to potential stakeholders and investors in the future. Currently, we only have a German version of this writing, which prevents us from sharing this project and receiving broad support from individuals and organizations in non-German-speaking countries. To increase our outreach within the EEB network and with other societal actors (whether from industry, civil society, or government) invested in a circular economy transition, it is important for us to have a more accessible English version. I was tasked with completing a thorough English translation which would keep the intrinsic value of the German version while reframing the argument to be appropriate yet powerful in English.

After finalizing a distributable version, I switched gears slightly and began working on collecting Europe-wide research on related environmental subfields to help inform the construction of our platform. A concern across Europe in science and specifically in environmental research is that the incongruous and unconnected nature of various undertakings results in research being redundantly replicated or not shared with the necessary audiences. There is a strong push by the EU and European scientific communities to fashion cross-sector, cross-industry platforms and databases to enable greater knowledge sharing and its resultant spillover benefits. My personal gathering of research on the fields of bioeconomy and plastics will hopefully enable us to learn from best practice examples and inform our outreach to and communication with potential stakeholders in this transition.

The culmination of this my internship experience occurred when I was fortunate enough to travel to Edinburgh to attend the EEB’s annual conference, which brought together 400 environmentalists from civil society, academia, and government to discuss the most pressing European environmental issues. This trip was truly incredible and afforded me the ability to more critically consider and interact with the European environmental community. I was able to sit in on lectures and panel discussions held by leading European environmental scientists, national ministers of agriculture and environment, and presidents of the largest environmental NGOs in Europe. I believe I was both the youngest participant and only American at this conference. The ability to experience such a robust gathering of European environmentalists from an outside and unique perspective was profound and unforgettable.

During the semester I began a second internship at European Forum Alpbach (EFA), an Austrian NGO which hosts one of the largest and most diverse annual European political/ socioeconomic conferences. EFA brings together roughly 5,000 individuals from between 70 and 100 countries over a three-weekend convention in late-August. Every year they have eight multi-day symposia spanning a broad range of pressing societal issues, and additionally hold lectures, working groups, and networking events to promote collaboration and European cross-communication. An important component of EFA’s work is the issuing of scholarship and fellowship opportunities for students, journalists, and young professionals to come together and attend this conference. For this organization, I have been trying to improve our outreach capabilities in America to both garner grant funding through American sponsors and to increase the quantity and quality of American scholarship applicants. This undertaking involved researching large American sponsors/funds focused on global development and American-European relations as well as determining ways to most effectively establish contact and partnerships with top American institutions of higher learning. I personally plan on attending this conference by scholarship next year and would love to make this opportunity known and accessible to similarly globally-minded American students.

These experiences were diverse yet similarly valuable. In both, I was able to speak German in a highly professional environment and learn from the cultural differences my coworkers brought forth. However, my primary takeaway from these experiences was not one of concrete language or cultural learning, but instead feeling increasingly connected to a globalizing world and recognizing the role (however small) I can play in solving the diverse, cross-national problems facing our world. I hope to carry these experiences with me as I strive to be an agent for global change in my future endeavors. I realize these internships were only small stops on the road of my hopefully long and impactful career, yet it is through these abroad opportunities that I have solidified my interest in international work and aim to embody a “global citizen". I now plan on taking environmental coursework at Williams, returning to Austria next summer for European Forum Alpbach 2018, and am more confident in my desire to write a global development-related senior thesis and pursue a Master’s Degree in Public Health or Public Administration in International Development.

“Don’t let the patriarchy into the home.” For Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a Bolivian housewife who wrote a testimony against imperialism in 1967, counter narratives and images against systemic “patriarchies” is vital to creating change. Feminism, in this case, is inextricable from discussions about colonialism and race. With Domatila’s words in mind, I left the U.S. in January 2017, seeking to break bread with the women of Spain and Morocco and to learn about the pluralities of feminism around the globe. I knew Granada to be a complex city: situated close to North Africa, histories underlined by fluctuations of racial and religious divisions. And so I became eager to explore beyond the divisions — what did solidarity look like for the women in the Western Mediterranean, with such a variety of perspectives of citizenship? Tangent, a photography essay project, became an opportunity not only to represent the testimonies and voices of local Spaniards and Moroccans, but also to bring together women and thinkers who might not have normally crossed paths. For me, in addition to my academic studies in Spain, I wanted to continue my work as a photographer and writer that would promote an anti-imperialist agenda that might, indeed, prevent the patriarchy from entering the home.

The collection of narratives, as a political means, can incorporate the participants to fully collaborate in the process. She can see her lived experience as validated; what might seem daily and mundane becomes worthy of political movement. The subject becomes an actor. In Cambridge, MA, where I grew up, I began to understand political actors as regular people. The public-school system, although “diverse” by outside standards, suffered from a racialized achievement gap. The administration scarcely discussed this systemic issue beyond closed doors. Any conversation seemed to fall short of incorporating the perspectives of the heterogeneous student population. Working with group of teachers and students who still pushed me to explore questions of social justice deeper, I began to collect and publish testimonies of students from all backgrounds about their experiences in the school. At IES Abroad Granada, I wanted to continue to explore the possibilities of narrative building as a form of resistance. Thus, I spoke with more than fifty local women that a study-abroad student might not normally meet in such a brief semester. The inclusion of voices from different regions, from the “colonizer” of Spain to the “colonized” of Latina America and Northern Africa, was an intentional attempt to underline the multitudes of voices participating in the global “citizenry” of the Western Mediterranean.

Tangent, beginning as a creative arts fellowship from Yale University, looks at the pluralities of roles and voices of women in our local and global communities. Professors of Gemma, a Master ́s program in the Women and Gender Studies department at the University of Granada, I came to know a vast network of women interested in participating in the project. “Do I look oppressed to you?” Munira, a Muslim woman running a Nazari leather shop asked me. “We are tired of being called oppressed.” Along with Munira, I worked on narratives with the only Sephardic Jewish woman raising a family in Granada, Gypsy teenagers who speak about their desire to be seen as more than ‘entertainers’ for the voyeuristic eye, women from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America selling fruit and clothing at the bustling Saturday market in Zaidin, female intellectuals in Morocco trying to complicate the western idea of feminism in Islamic regions, religious leaders participating in Spain’s largest Catholic processions — these are only a few of the women who welcomed me into their space to talk, learn, and reimagine “feminism” together. Wanting to further explore the multiplicity of perspectives, and to also immerse myself in the geopolitics of Morocco and Spain, I spent the month of Ramadan living with a family in Rabat. Here, I witnessed daily moments of power in the female Islamic household. Not only do Aicha and I continue to share stories of womanhood across the Atlantic, but we also plan to reunite post-graduation to collaborate on giving a series of workshops for young women about sexuality and power. This photo-narrative project, indeed, might have negligible significance. However, both the final product narratives and the less tangible conversations of my work could be part of a slow, yet important paradigm shift for women around the world. These women who I spoke to, who are often misunderstood as apolitical or passive, have shown resistance to stereotypical common ideology. Perhaps one of the women I spoke with, with a new validation that she is a political actor, will be inspired to share her story more with young girls and boys in the future generations. A new cycle can begin: these children, perhaps more able to question anti-feminisms, could go on to be politicians, mothers or fathers, and teachers, participating in powerful webs of critical thinking and cutting-edge storytelling. Perhaps some women, who met each other in Granada or Morocco during our meetings or workshops about my project, will meet again. Thus these initial conversations could formulate new political spaces for women to collaborate, to break bread, across difference. Further, by refusing to reduce all women to a single story in the media and in daily conversations, we can begin the undoing of the patriarchy entering the home.

The process of my work, living and writing with these powerful women, drastically changed my path as a scholar and citizen. Our conversations not only pushed me to explore gender studies within Yale’s Ethnic Studies department, but they also questioned my very intentions of writing and creating art. It is quite difficult to put someone in front of your camera, to ask for her narrative—intimate, but also rendering a power relationship. Who am I, a Yale student from the United States, to make art about women in Morocco? I was asked, each day, to be a better listener; this project was not my own, but rather a product of many interventions and changes by the people involved. Thus, I began learning to become receptive and adaptive to voices in the room. Whether in a court as a lawyer or in the newsroom as a journalist, this series of experiences has inspired me to work alongside with, not above, the communities for whom I hope to affect change. Moreover, having showcased the Tangent project in various classrooms and for the World Fellows Greenberg program at Yale, I continued working with a student photographer on a campus-focused project on female intimacy at Yale. What is intimacy, and what does it look like in contrast to what the media portrays? Through this work, I not only formed priceless relationships with the participants, but I also gained new confidence in art as a power tool to combat pejorative stigmas in society around gender, love, and intimacy. The power of art and narrative has become boundless for many of us involved in the project—for this I look forward to the creative work that the women around me will do to forge political questions. This summer I hope to work with the Institute of Narrative Growth, a social justice organization that promotes cutting-edge stories as agents for groundbreaking change. How do we capacitate low-income communities in cities, or migrant workers new to the U.S., to share their stories of resistance against marginalization? How can we help the stories become more effective as evidence to garner change? Informed by my previous work in New Haven with labor unions and research on race and migration in Peru, Spain, and Argentina, this summer would be more than an eight-week opportunity to work with professionals in my desired field of human rights law. For many groups I would meet day-to-day, these conversations and workshops will become spaces for them to learn about the power of their stories, to validate their lived experiences as political forces. From entering public schools curriculums to newspaper headliners, stories of resistance can change the literal writings of history. And resistance, as I saw with IES in Spain, comes in a multitude of forms. We need more nuanced stories to complicate hegemonic narratives that exist that allow patriarchies in the homes of poor or underprivileged people across the globe. With IES, I learned to listen to powerful histories— closely and slowly—and to see each one as a possible chance to change the world.

Growing up, my parents provided my brother and I with many resources to academically and socially thrive—except they had one rule for us: our path must ultimately help people in some way. Combining my investigative and social passions, I came to study public health, with a focus on maternal health and child malnutrition. In my eyes, malnutrition is one of the direst inequalities we as a world and society must tackle. I believe this focus is critical because nutrition status at a young age impacts future growth, cognitive development, disease risk, mental health, and life quality of the children’s later lives. Despite Argentina’s rich social justice culture and the opportunity to strengthen my Spanish, Argentina’s public health system also called me to study abroad there. Unlike the U.S., Argentina has a universal health care option available to anyone, however, I was still aware that 22% of children are malnourished and the exclusive breastfeeding rate is low at only 33%. The supply of health care but lack of distribution contributed to my desire to volunteer with Fundación CONIN.

As a Global Poverty and Practice Minor, my challenge is to critically analyze all poverty solutions by looking at if the community has a large enough voice, asking if this is a “bandaid” or sustainable solution, or determining if this solution intensified a different problem; however, these complex analyses became frustrating and exhausting to me. I was stuck in a stalemate because each resolution we discussed in GPP or public health classes, had flaws or could do more harm than help, and the passion that led me to combine my public health and global poverty work was slowly being taken over by feelings of hopelessness and defeat. However, despite this stalemate, I went into my study abroad experience with an open mind, and was excited to engage in global poverty work from a perspective outside the classroom.

During my semester abroad to Buenos Aires, Argentina in Spring 2017, I participated in IES Abroad Service Learning and chose Fundación CONIN as my organization to volunteer with weekly. Fundación CONIN is a non-profit that aims to reduce malnutrition in the slums of Buenos Aires by offering free services to mothers and their children. According to the organization, everyone in the villa qualifies socially for these services because of income, employment status, or number of people in the family, but over half of the children also qualify nutritionally because of their malnutrition status. These services include appointments with a pediatrician, social worker, nutritionist, and psychologist, cooking and nutrition education classes, day care for the children during these classes, and free food bags and health supplements. I was thoroughly impressed with the organization, care, compassion, and connection the women who worked at the organization had with women who were being “served” at the organization. I quickly learned that this was a mutual relationship, and that all these women were deeply united. My work here truly pushed me out of my comfort zone as I rode the bus every Wednesday morning for an hour from a secure, privileged metropolitan area, to an immensely poor, and neglected slum, where I entered the organization as an outsider, and had to communicate solely in Spanish. During the beginning weeks of volunteering when my Spanish was still limited and I was unfamiliar with the structure of the organization, my jobs mostly consisted of packing food bags, organizing the office, or sorting donations. I was very intrigued by the services CONIN offered to the women and wanted to be working directly with the mothers, helping with breastfeeding and cooking education; however, I quickly understood I was here at this organization to help in any way possible. I was here not to gain my own experience—although this also occurred—or impose my “knowledge,” but to simply help wherever I was needed! This is where I think changing the world began for me. This organization needed small volunteer help with the simplest of jobs, and I was able to put my selfish desires and public health interests aside, to just simply help. In addition, as my semester continued, I was able to be more involved in the direct services. I assisted with breastfeeding, vaccine, nutrition, and cooking education, and reviewed the nutritional status of the children to determine if the children were underweight, overweight, or stunted. As my Spanish improved and I became more familiar with everyone, I began to build my own connection with the workers, mothers, and the children. To me, this was another huge focus of my greater aspiration to change the world through public health. Without the trust, communication, and participation amongst workers and the families being served, the entire organization and goal to decrease inequalities would fall apart. This trust between a non-governmental organization, and impoverished communities will allow more people to be served, spread more awareness of the accessibility of the services, give the communities a larger voice in future actions, and dismantle the idea that impoverished communities cannot organize or be active themselves. By allowing the mothers to lead in the organization and just helping where I was needed as an outsider, I believe I helped change the world through social organizing in many ways.

While abroad, I often thought back to the times at Berkeley when I was battling that “frustration bump”, feeling that each solution created another problem. My Argentinian experience, however, has brought me peace and an understanding that although no solution or effort put forward will be perfect or solve the entire problem, if I commit my time, work, and career to decreasing disparities, I will be changing the world in some way. Moreover, I came to realize that the low-income minority populations I wish to serve don’t have the privilege to become frustrated and give up on dealing with the inequalities they face, and therefore, I should not have that privilege either. In this current political climate in which minorities, people of low socioeconomic status, and women have a subordinate voice, there is no time to be frustrated and stuck in a stalemate simply because of critical analysis. More than ever, I am passionate and dedicated to standing up against the current political state that is not supporting minority and low-income groups, and is focused on promoting individualism rather than solidarity and collaboration. I am proud to say that this drive and perseverance to change the world is immensely accredited to my experience abroad. Without the work I did with Fundación CONIN, my host family, and learning about Argentinian culture, I would not value community organizing, realize I should help wherever I am needed, and be motivated to continue to work with impoverished communities as much.

To put to action the lessons I have learned abroad and my dedication to underserved populations, I will continue my public health nutrition focus in academia, my work at a community health non-profit in Oakland, and my research in Latin America. I have applied to purse my Masters of Public Health in hopes of dismantling power structures and health inequalities, but will apply for fellowships in Latin America if not accepted. I would like to continue my Child Development in Latin America research I currently do with my professor, but working with the direct research teams through fellowships in Mexico, Colombia, or Chile. With all these future options, I know I will carry with me the lessons IES Abroad Argentina has taught me in order to change the world.

“Look where I’m going, not where I’ve been.” That is a quote that was plastered along the walls of Working Chance, a London based recruitment consultancy for women ex-offenders. That is the mentality Jocelyn Hillman, the CEO, had when she founded the organization at her kitchen table in 2009. That is the passion I discovered when I had the opportunity to intern there the summer of 2017.

My first day started with drowning in my own privilege. I knew the organization chose candidates—the ex-offenders—and aided them in gaining employment, but I did not expect more than half of the agency to also be ex-convicts. It was chuckle-worthy at the time; the office was teeming with what society would label “outsiders”, yet, I was the only one. It was in that moment that I recognized my own privilege. I, at 19, was receiving a college education at a fairly prestigious school in the States, and when I applied, I was accepted without a doubt. I could travel across the pond to intern in a different country, and no one batted an eye. I could apply to any job I wanted, and presuming I had the right qualifications, I wouldn’t be overlooked. The candidates that came into Working Chance, and most of the people that worked there, they didn’t have that privilege. And that, to me, just seemed… unjust. Thus, I became more knowledgeable about my own prejudice and also became a champion for social justice. I vowed to fully immerse myself in this opportunity and change others’ mindsets about “criminals”. I began the MORE campaign.

I claimed that our non-profit was more than an average recruitment agency, and the staff was so receptive to the idea that it became the pitch for the new corporate membership program. I stated that Working Chance is not just an organization that helps women ex-offenders get jobs. Working Chance destroys the stigmas of ‘criminal’ and ‘offender’, and redefines those words completely, as the women that go through our program become MORE: more confident, capable, responsible, and motivated. Working Chance embodies the idea of second chances because every person, no matter what they’ve done or what they’ve gone through, deserves an opportunity to become MORE and believe that they are MORE: more than a conviction, more than a circumstance, more than a label. Working Chance revolutionizes the way people see justice because punishing someone twice—once with incarceration, once with the label—that isn’t justice.

Seeing our candidates, meeting them and getting to know them, became a priority of mine, so I started that campaign. I wanted to inspire others to see these women as more, but I would also have to inspire the candidates to believe that they, themselves, are more than their convictions. That, sometimes, is the biggest battle; prison takes away your freedom and can also take away your sense of self. That is why one of Working Chance’s fundamental goals is to raise the self-confidence of the women we see, whether that is through workshops, employability events, or one to one appointments. I’m proud to say I raised the confidence of at least 20 women while I was an intern at Working Chance.

Inspiring these people—both employees and candidates—cultivated my passion. I initially intended to get an internship in a law firm or within a barrister’s office in London; becoming an attorney was and still is my dream. But before my experience abroad at Working Chance, I didn’t have an answer for why that was. Now I know. It’s to be the difference in restorative and social justice. I’m not just going to change mindsets about “criminals”; I’m going to get rid of the stigma and ensure that these women never feel, as one candidate described, “worthless” or “without hope” ever again.

Since returning to the U.S., I’ve continued my studies at Loyola in forensic science and criminal justice. I continue to follow up on my interest regarding ex-offenders and the justice system by taking as many classes as I can regarding those subjects. I shadow defense attorneys and meet with their clients during school breaks, and I try to watch cases regularly at the courthouse while I attend school- both so I can better learn how to defend “criminals” when I become an attorney. I am an active member of Alpha Phi Sigma, the criminal justice honor society, and the Criminal Justice Organization at my university; we participate in many community service projects regarding ex-offenders. The most notable of those projects is The Summit of Hope, where we aided ex-offenders in the U.S. in getting jobs; I served as a volunteer last year, but hopefully will co-facilitate Loyola’s involvement this year. I also serve as a defense attorney for the Loyola Mock Trial team, where I defend a client who has been accused of attempted murder. Hopefully, one day I’ll be defending real “criminals” and be able to convince others that they’re actually not criminals at all. After all, one should “look where [they’re] going, not where [they’ve] been”.

As a student passionate about sustainability as demonstrated by the following achievements, I believe I am the next Global Citizen of the Year. While studying abroad for nine months in Milan, I became fervently passionate about sustainability and transitioned my lifestyle accordingly. Through this transition, I switched my diet to veganism, boycotted fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara, and expressed my newfound creativity.

Foremost, I became vegan after being inspired by the abundance of fresh produce at farmers’ markets, and the importance of high quality food to the Italian culture. By being vegan, I began fueling my body with the highest quality food from farmers’ markets and farm-to-table restaurants, rather than typical junk food filled with preservatives. This allowed me to lose nearly 15 pounds and regain my health. In doing so, I also gained energy, and was able to put my best foot forward in my studies, work, and travels. Additionally, I learned the importance of supporting small farmers at markets because, on average, our food travels nearly 1,500 miles to the point of where we purchase it. I realized I could avoid this gas and emission pollution by buying local produce, something I proudly did every week in Milan alongside the locals.  

Secondly, I had the opportunity to intern at a fashion company called Front Row Tribe, a company similar to Rent the Runway. The business model of this company revolved around renting the same 20-30 designer dresses to customers. This concept introduced me to the idea of sustainable fashion, rather than introducing new items into the fashion cycle. While interning here, I had the opportunity to model one of the outfits and create Instagram content for the company. After this shoot, I realized I could adopt this idea of sustainable fashion to my personal wardrobe. Thus, I boycotted “fast fashion” companies, such as H&M and Zara, which are major contributors to pollution and climate change. Instead, I began shopping at thrift stores and flea markets, like East Market Milano, in order to reduce my carbon footprint and buy what was already in the market.

Aside from making the previously mentioned changes, I also learned how to express my creativity through new styles of clothing, photography, and writing. Between classes and my internship, I would sit in a café or a park and observe the fashion styles of the locals. I would write down my favorite details and pieces, and try to incorporate them into my style. This allowed me to broaden my style and differentiate myself in the blogging industry by reaching over 30,000 page views. Additionally, I had the opportunity to take a photography class at IES Abroad which allowed me to strengthen my photography skills. These skills are demonstrated on my blog, as well as my experience as an IES Abroad Photo Correspondent. Likewise, I connected with photographers on my program who continued to challenge my creative side. Together, we were able to collaborate and have photoshoots in professional photography studios, and around the city. Lastly, I learned how to express my creativity through writing by taking a creative writing course at the local university, Università Cattolica. These creative expressions allowed me to further formulate my brand of A Newer Kat in Town.

Upon my arrival back to the United States, I continued this sustainability journey by interning at a sustainable company, transitioning my blog to a sustainable fashion and lifestyle blog, and becoming zero-waste. Just three days after my arrival back home, I began interning at a sustainable water bottle company in New York City called S’well Bottle. While interning at S’well, I worked in Sales to promote the bottle to sustainable fashion companies. In doing so, I continued to learn of the horrors of the “fast fashion” fashion industry and made the decision to transition my existing fashion blog, A Newer Kat in Town, to a sustainable fashion and lifestyle blog. I no longer wanted to promote and collaborate with “fast fashion” brands as I had done in the past. Rather, I began collaborating and creating campaigns with eco-friendly brands such as Matter Prints, Empire Street Style, and Swap Consignment.

Aside from collaborating with these brands, I also connected with like-minded bloggers by attending my first official fashion show during New York Fashion Week, a dream I had since experiencing Milan Fashion Week. During this period, I simultaneously began to evaluate my other lifestyle practices, most notably the amount of trash I produced. While in Milan, my apartment was required to compost and recycle, having five different bins in our kitchen for glass, metal, plastic, compost, and trash. With this in mind, our apartment of seven girls only produced about one bag of trash per week. This starkly contrasted with the one bag of trash I alone was producing each week back home. I realized that I had to change in order to align my values of sustainability with my daily actions. Therefore, I decided to become zero-waste. That’s right, I produce zero waste! I made this change by using reusable bags and jars, shopping in bulk, buying unpackaged food, and adjusting all of my purchases so that I could produce zero waste. I now incorporate these practices into my blog, and inspire others to make these simple switches as well.

As the year progresses, I am continuing to learn new sustainable practices, and inspiring others to do the same through my blog and social media platforms. In the upcoming weeks, I will be launching a sustainable, vintage fashion company which will be showcased at Villanova University’s annual fashion show in February, as well as writing my first e-book. I look forward to inspiring others to find newer, more sustainable ways of doing things, changing the way we look at fashion, and creating a world with more creativity and less pollution.

When I decided to study abroad in Santiago in the spring of 2017, I knew that I wanted to get involved and learn about the community that was going to be home for the next couple of months. During my college career, education inequity issues and college access for low-income students fueled me to get involved and work with organizations that seek to make an impact to change the reality of our nation’s inequity in education. My experience navigating the U.S. education system as a Latina first generation college student gave me the opportunity to understand the experience of many groups and engage with organizations that work with students who face these challenges. Through my work with organizations like Al Exito and Breakthrough that work toward these mission statements in the United States, I was able to be part of organizations that assisted and guided low-income students of color to obtain access to higher education. Working with these organizations have been a key part of my college experience as they have allowed me to merge my personal experience, passion, and classroom learnings to hands-on experience. Therefore, prior to choosing my study abroad program, I knew that an internship was essential. It would not only put me in a position to interact with the local community, but also give both of us the opportunity to learn from each other. 

Through the Politics, Social Justice, and Language program in Santiago, I worked with Belen Educa, a Chilean non-profit organization that serves low-income communities in Santiago by providing students with a high-quality education. As I worked at one of their schools, Colegio Alberto Hurtado, I assisted the English Department in the classroom, as well as helped with events, programming, and administrative work. My journey at this school completely changed my perspectives on what education looks like internationally and expanded my mind.  Every interaction with the teachers, students, and administrators made me aware of why this type of work is essential globally. The first and foremost important lesson I learned with the group of 7-12th grade students was the importance of cultural competency no matter your background or race. Therefore, my mindset consisted of learning about the community first and allowing them to guide me in the different ways I could support their needs. I strongly believe that working with communities creates a bigger impact than working for them. I was fortunate that the students and teachers allowed me to share my personal experiences and have them guide me on the different ways we could work together to learn from each other.

When I think of what changing the world looks like, I remember my personal experience. I had several people believe in me and guide me through my educational journey which completely changed my world for the better. I think that my experience working at Colegio Alberto Hurtado taught me that although I only worked with 7-12th grade and not the whole school, it takes planting a seed in one person to create change. I’m hopeful that the students were able to take lessons from our conversations in the same way I did. I hope that in one way during our individual tutoring, class sessions, and daily interactions I was able to change their perspective and create motivation in their lives in the same way they did with my life.

The tools and skills I gained during this experience allowed me to continue this work back in my local community. I presented my experience abroad working at the school to students and families at my college campus, and therefore engage others on the importance of this work locally, nationally, and globally. I currently co-lead a mentoring and tutoring program at the Meskwaki Settlement School in South Tama, Iowa. As a result of the cumulative work with several organizations, I am in the process of publishing a cultural competent college access mentoring curriculum that different organizations can use. In addition, working with Belen Educa encouraged my interest to work with education policy and make it into my career. My time abroad would have not been the same without this experience. It not only changed me personally and academically, but also made me excited for my career path.

Take us back to the beginning of your study abroad experience. What made you want to study abroad? Why Milan or why Italy? How did your journey begin?

I decided to study in abroad in Italy mainly because my father is from Italy. He was born in Naples and came to the United States when he was around my age, around 20-21 years old, first to study, and then he ended up staying. So I have a serious personal connection to Italy. Most of my family, especially on his side, is still there. I have family in Naples and family more in the center of the country as well. I've always had a tie towards there. I've always had a passion for the language. I've learned it a bit in the house growing up and studied it in school as well. And one of my major goals for study abroad was to gain complete fluency in the language.

So my decision to go to Italy was pretty straightforward, whereas my decision to go to Milan wasn't so much so. Milan, I actually never been to until I decided to go there. When I landed on January 15th last year, that was my first time in Milan. So that was a totally new experience for me, and it was pretty different from the Italy I knew. It was a lot more modern, a lot more cosmopolitan, subway system works, etc., which isn't necessarily true in many other parts of Italy. That in itself was a very interesting experience for me.

We loved your reflection on deciding to step out of your comfort zone in Milan. In your application, you said:

“I distinctly remember feeling the temptation to be lulled by the tepid water of my new comfort zones: the IES Abroad center, my homestay and all of my new friends. Luckily, I sensed that this would not yield me exactly what I hoped to get out of my time abroad; I would be running the risk of jeopardizing the period of personal growth I was yearning for. To push my boundaries even further, I decided to find a way to get involved with the host community.” 

So beautifully said. In your words, why do you feel it is important to leave one’s comfort zone? And what made you choose service learning as a step towards accomplishing this goal?

In terms of my service learning work while I was abroad, I remember distinctly feeling like in the first few days there I really liked IES Abroad Milan. I really liked the friends I was making. I was very confident that it would be a successful semester. However, I was also looking for an opportunity to kind of go beyond that, to really turn this into a period of personal growth for me.

I had studied abroad in Prague for one semester in high school, my second semester of sophomore year, and I remember that being probably the most transformative period in my life. And I just remember really wanting to get that same feeling out of studying in Milan. And I felt like if I got a little too comfortable with what everyone else was doing, maybe it would've just been a fun semester, but not exactly transformative like I wanted it to be. So I viewed service learning as my vehicle for doing that.

The way the course was advertised, it was not necessarily volunteering in the sense of working at a soup kitchen or what you stereotypically think of what volunteering looks like, but it was much more hands-on, much more grounded in the major issue in Italy right now, which is migration. And although I'd read about this stuff in papers, I'd never yet seen it in action, and it's prominent in Milan perhaps even more so than in other parts of Italy. So that was, I think, an incredibly important move that I made in deciding to enroll in that course. It ended up being a very influential experience, and I'm very happy I did that.

I think it's incredibly important to leave your comfort zone, because that's how you grow. That's how you learn more about yourself and more about the world around you. Although it's uncomfortable to leave your comfort zone, it's hard and it's unsettling at times, the reward is always so monumental that you kind of look back and say, "I don't know how I did it, but here I am, and this feels great." So I'm all for leaving your comfort zone. And as I just described before, I think service learning is an incredible vehicle for doing so. I think it gives you all the tools. It doesn't hold your hand in doing so, but it gives you the tools. In my experience, specifically, it gave me the connection to work at the Comune de Milano, volunteering there on a weekly basis and communicating with these people, perhaps in a way I would not have been able to do if I had not gone through the service learning program.

In a few words, tell us about how you have made a positive impact in the world through study abroad.

I think I had a positive impact on the world through study abroad because it forced me to face my own privilege. I consider myself pretty socially conscious and have for quite a while, though I think my time in Italy was a bit different in the way it forced me to view it. I have usually placed myself in the context of American social equities, whereas this put me in a kind of a realm of migration, which I had never yet experienced. So through my volunteer work at the Comune de Milano, I was helping with these translations, helping describe the situations of migrants to the Italian social workers, their trips as well as their visa system, visa application process, and their housing situation.

Your application included a powerful story of translating a Nigerian migrant’s history in reaching Italy, and the responsibility you felt in that moment. You said:

“I felt as if the quality of his care and his future in Italy depended almost entirely on the quality of my translation.”

This reflection ties so closely to something we speak of often: the power one individual can have on another’s life. Share your thoughts with us on this topic. How was this present in your service learning experience?

I think, as listed here, that the quality of my translation was very likely indicative of the quality of their stay in Italy because the social worker that I was volunteering for was reliant on the quality of my translation. If I had failed to adequately translate something or if I neglected to communicate a detail that the migrant was trying to communicate, then that was lost in translation, and neither the social worker nor the migrant would have picked up on that.

So it was absolutely stressful. I felt like I had a lot of responsibility. At times, it was very, very tough. Though I consider myself fluent, sometimes the vocabulary wouldn't come to me or some of the words were too technical, or I hadn't experienced some of these words in relation to migration or visa applications and things like that. So it was complicated, and it forced me out of my comfort zone absolutely every time I went in. But I think it was just an incredibly, incredibly important experience to have as well. And I think, as a result, I ended up really contributing to both the experience of the migrant as well as the [Comune de Milano] center who did not, at the moment, have an English translator.

What did you learn about the world through your experiences in Milan?

I learned a whole lot about the world through my experience in Milan. A lot of it, like I said, through the lens of migration. And to make that more broad, I had learned that the world's most complex issues, the issues that we think are the most hot button right now which we see as a little black and white when we read them online, it's easy to see a ship of migrants in the New York Times and say, "Oh my God, that's horrible. We need to help these people. How are people not doing something about this?" etc. It's very easy to take a side when it comes to stuff like that.

But when you see this in practice, you see the Italian social workers who don't have the resources to better accommodate these people when you see migrants on the street in Italy asking for money on every corner because none of them can find jobs. It makes you wonder exactly where the root of the problem is and what we can really do. Because a lot of the times, we apply these blanket accusations that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing. And my time in service there, they made me wonder, "Well, who is the they? Is it the Italian government? Is it the social workers? Is it the EU?" These are all very important questions that even after my time I don't necessarily have the answer to. And I think most people don't have the answers to those questions. So I say most broadly, it's just understanding the complexities of the situation. Don't just think there's a yes and no question, but more, "what is the situation?", "what can we potentially do about this?"

What did you learn about yourself?

In my time in Italy, I had learned that I'm perhaps a little too ambitious when it comes to solving these problems. I think my social conscience really came into play in the beginning of my college career. When I decided to be a political science major, it was very clear to me that this is what I cared about. And I've never really doubted it since then. But I think I was a little too optimistic back then. Like I said before, I thought things were a little more black and white than they are. I didn't exactly understand how hard it was to change some of these things.

I learned that although I am very passionate about these things, it's incredibly important to understand all sides of the story, to understand why people are thinking about it the way they are, what details are factored into them, how an issue can affect them differently than it's affecting myself. In turn, why that's making them have the stance that they have. So not to be so ambitious and so kind of bulldozer-y in my approach to these social issues, but really try to understand all sides of the story.

How has this experienced shaped your future? What’s next?

I think this has really, really shaped who I am, and it's shaped my future. Right after I came back from study abroad, I took a course at my school on migration and human rights where I actually wrote a 35-page mini-thesis on the socio-economic integration of migrants into Italian society. So rather than just discussing the migration crisis broadly, I decided to examine exactly how or if they're integrated adequately into Italian society, both socially and economically. So I did essentially what I was doing while I was abroad, but then I looked at it through an academic lens while also applying some of my personal experiences.

That was a really, really interesting process for me. I was doing a bit of the reverse of what I guess most people do. Most people would probably study it academically and then go into the field. Whereas here, I did the hands-on stuff, and then came home and studied it. So that was really interesting for me just to see where there were gaps and expectations of reality and where things really aligned.

If you could give one piece of advice to future study abroad students, what would it be?

If I can give one piece of advice to future study abroad students, I would just say try to push yourself out of your comfort zone in every way you can. Although it's easy and it seems fun to just fall in with the rest of the crowd, I would say maintain those friendships. Meet new people. Go places. Go to new cities. Go to new places on the weekends, but also find your own outlet. Find something, whether it's service learning, volunteering, or whatever it may be for you that gives you the opportunity to grow personally as an individual, rather than as a group.

Take us back to the beginning of your study abroad and internship experiences. What made you want to study and intern abroad? Why China and South Africa? How did your journey begin?

Going into this past summer, I had previously studied abroad twice through the College of DuPage. The first time was in Bordeaux, France during the summer of 2013 before I started my undergraduate program at the University of Iowa. While in the midst of my coursework at Iowa, I went to study German in Berlin during the summer of 2015. Both of these experiences taught me more about myself than I had ever learned before.

While completing my undergraduate, I knew that the summer between graduation and starting grad school at Rush University’s Master of Health Systems Management program was a big opportunity to do something I’d remember forever. Before I applied to graduate school, I considered doing a gap year abroad but came to the realization that I could consolidate that time into an incredible gap summer for a fraction of the cost.

I chose to study abroad in China because I had a keen curiosity to learn about the economic and social climate of such an emerging global superpower. I wanted to pair an experience in China with one almost on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in interning for the Western Cape Department of Health in Cape Town, South Africa. The African continent was one I had never previously explored and felt that the time was now to gain real-time public hospital work experience while exploring the southern section of the massive continent.

Through my travels, I’ve learned I learn the most about myself while in situations unfamiliar to me. Thus, on this quest of self-discovery, I chose two countries, which have completely different sets of values to each other in order to hopefully, understand the most that I could about myself and about the world from the experience.

In your application, you shared that funding this experience wasn’t easy. What was it that made you so committed to this making this experience a reality?

When I made the decision to take this unforgettable “gap summer,” I knew it would certainly be costly. I applied for every scholarship I was eligible for through the University of Iowa, IES Abroad, and any national or state organization I could discover.

In addition to this, I worked at Cortado Coffee & Café in Iowa City as a cook, bus boy, prep chef, and food runner for as many hours as I could fit into a week and save every penny that I could. Some days would go by where I opened the café at 6 a.m. and wouldn’t leave until I closed at 8 p.m., which meant, I never even saw the sun.

I was so committed to making this experience a reality because I knew it would change my perception on life, the world, and its people. Ever since I discovered I wanted to be a healthcare administrator, I also knew that I always wanted to work in a hospital somewhere in Africa, at some point in my career. This was at the top of my bucket list as it gave me an incredible sense of empathy, which I knew would be absolutely vital in my future career in the healthcare field.

The day after you graduated you got on a plane and took off for three months. Over the course of a summer, you traversed three continents and had uniquely compelling experiences in each. How did those experiences compare and contrast with each other?

I would say that the experiences I had in China, Southern Africa, and Europe were all different in their own way.

In China, a lot of the experiences I had were focused on learning about how business is conducted in China. The group I traveled with had a lot of site visits with major international corporations located in Beijing and Shanghai. These site visits presented incredible learning opportunities to be informed of how business protocol in China differs from that of the United States. Outside of “learning the business,” we took a day trip to the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and a day at Disney Land Shanghai!

Heading to Cape Town and Southern Africa was a real change of pace. China was full of modern high rises with incredible light displays on the faces of the buildings. Southern Africa was all about the natural beauty. In China, due to the abundant smog and air pollution, there wasn’t a single day with a clear blue sky. While in South Africa, I can’t remember a day that was ever even cloudy! Between Table Mountain National Park and the ocean, the city of Cape Town’s vibe was much less “hustle and bustle” and more relaxed.

The South African experience was also much different from the China one as I was working as a Health Management Intern for 2 months. This came with a lot more freedom to explore as everyday after work was my own and every weekend I could go where ever I wanted to go. I went into South Africa with a bucket list and crossed everything off the list I wanted to. I traveled to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. I went hiking, surfing, riding a camel in the desert, sand boarding, and a sunset dinner cruise just to name a few.

After traveling to all these different countries and having an abundance of new experiences, I made my way to Europe to experience a little familiarity and to catch up with some old friends in the remaining two weeks of my grand adventure. While traveling through Austria, Switzerland, and Italy I was able to spend quality time with my friends playing golf, hiking, flying in a plane around the Swiss alps, and trying all kinds of delicious foods.

What did they teach you about the world at large?

The combination of these experiences taught me the value of never being afraid to try something new. Out of all the new things I tried this summer, I never did something and regretted it. This told me that the world is full of all kinds of opportunities and places worth exploring and trying. It also taught me how surprisingly easy it is to find commonalities with people from all over the world. We’re all more alike in this world than we are different!

And about yourself?

These experiences taught me the importance of continuing to travel and learn more from the world. It is crazy to thank that I’ve been to 16 countries in my 23 years and its not even 10% of all the countries left for me to explore!

I’ve learned to never refrain from doing something just because you’re the only one who wants to do it, and to simply not stress. When you travel, you realize and see first-hand some of the greater problems facing humanity. By putting all of the little things that might stress us out into perspective, you see the magnitude of the problem doesn’t warrant the stress associated with it!

I’ve learned to appreciate the little things in life and that I’m committed to continually learning more and more about the world every time I travel!

In a few words, tell us about how you have made a positive impact in the world through studying and interning abroad.

I feel as though I made a positive impact on the world through study abroad by working in the South African public hospital systems, which serve some of the least fortunate and most deserving people in the community.

Many of South Africa’s public hospitals are poorly resourced and there is often little time and resources available to improve workflow efficiency or develop creative new ideas. As a Health Management Intern, I was able to jump into the healthcare system and approach the operations of New Somerset Hospital from a perspective well outside of a South African context.

Given this freedom to innovate, I was able to design and implement process improvements from the ground up which have outlived my time and Cape Town and make a lasting tangible difference to New Somerset Hospital and the patient community they serve.

Why do you believe intercultural understanding is important in the medical field?

I believe that intercultural understanding is critical in the medical field due to the fact that, over the next few years, you will see a large expansion of the American Academic Medical Center (AMC) abroad.

This international expansion is one of the greatest reasons why I decided to embark on the path I am currently on. By having international American AMCs, the amount of difference clinicians and administrators will be able to make will exponentially increase. This expansion will lead to improved global health outcomes while simultaneously create access to care for patients that they may have not had previously. Clinicians at the top AMCs in the country see international patients regularly. By having intercultural understanding, we can enhance the patient experience by catering the care and service we provide them, to their needs and desires. Also, when expanding internationally, one must be aware of the market in which they are entering, as it may be drastically different than the United States. A meticulous analysis of cross-cultural competencies will lead to successful expansion internationally for the American AMC.

How has this experienced shaped your future? What’s next?

Studying and interning abroad was one of the most abundantly clear reasons to me on why I began down the path of becoming a healthcare administrator. By being able to see the need for the quality of care we experience in the United States abroad, first hand, I knew I was pursuing a career that would not only help better global health outcomes, but also one that I would find absolute joy in doing everyday.

After finishing this semester at Rush University’s HSM program, I’ll be moving to Cleveland in May as a summer administrative resident with Cleveland Clinic’s imaging department. I couldn’t be more excited and thankful for the opportunity to work for such an organization that makes a difference in the lives of countless patients at home and abroad on a daily basis.

Upon completion of my summer administrative residency, I will be applying for a number of postgraduate administrative fellowship positions with several organizations across the country to start in the summer of 2020. I’m really excited for what my future holds and can’t thank my family, close friends, colleagues, professors and mentors enough for all the incredible support they show me day in and day out to as I continue to push toward my dreams.

If you could give one piece of advice to future study abroad students, what would it be?

If you’re sitting there, reading this, considering the pros and cons of studying abroad, think no further and just go for it.

The experience you will have will completely alter the way you see the world and how you live your life on a daily basis. When you go, do absolutely everything and anything that you can in the time that you have, because it will fly by, and you will wish you had done more with the time that you have.

Which leads me to my unique piece of advice that is not standard to what you may hear elsewhere. While I was in South Africa this summer I really wanted to go to Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, Namibia for a weekend. None of my other fellow interns wanted to go however and I was left with a decision. Do I not go on the basis no one else wants to, or do I go on my own because its something I really wanted to go?

I decided to go and had the absolute BEST WEEKEND I have ever had. While travelling completely alone, in a country where I knew absolutely no one, I learned more than I ever thought I would about myself and a new culture while also having a ton of fun doing activities such as, sand boarding, riding a camel in the desert, and kayaking with thousands of seals in the bay.

Always follow your heart and seize all of the moments because you will regret not doing so!

Take us back to the beginning of your study abroad experience. What made you want to study abroad? Why Buenos Aires? How did your journey begin?

I wanted to study abroad since I came to Lafayette. I love traveling, meeting new people, and new cultures, so living in an entirely new place sounded very appealing. And so, I started looking at programs pretty early on.

I wanted to go to Latin America because I knew absolutely nothing about it except that it had beautiful lands and corrupt systems. I wanted to improve my Spanish skills and to be in a big and diverse city, where I could meet people from different backgrounds and try different things, such as attending a tango class. As I looked into Buenos Aires, it seemed like a great option, with a European influence combined with the Latin American culture and the distinct landscapes that were all across Argentina that I was so excited to visit.

You have a uniquely global perspective as an international student studying in the United States who chose to study abroad in Buenos Aires. How do you feel this influenced your study abroad experience?

I was more willing to leave my comfort zone and I valued connections with local communities more. Coming to the United States, I had been through the process of moving to a new country and starting from zero. It took me some time then to realize that becoming uncomfortable was so important for self-growth.

Through making friends with Americans, learning slang, Netflix (it wasn’t worldwide yet), and various aspects of the American culture, I got learn a new perspective, a new way to perceive the world around me. That is why I wanted to engage with the local communities and make friends with the people of Buenos Aires.

In a few words, tell us about how you have made a positive impact in the world through study abroad.

During my study abroad experience, I volunteered, worked, observed, and learned. Being back on my college campus, I am now using the resources that are available to take action. My experiences with environmental justice issues in Buenos Aires inspired me to study urban inequality in my home city, in Istanbul.

For my honors thesis, I am studying the impacts of urban renewal projects on displaced residents’ access to urban services, such as health care and education. I still carry the knowledge that I acquired when I was studying abroad. It has an impact on my daily life, on my values, on my future goals.

You came into this adventure seeking deep cultural immersion—a desire we very much connect to! Tell us more about why this level of connection with local people is important to you.

I am a very curious person and when I travel somewhere, I want to learn all about it! Learning about social issues that were prevalent in Buenos Aires and talking to locals about those issues to get their perspectives, I had some of the most memorable conversations. That’s why I wanted to immerse myself and become a part of the community because it was only this way that I could truly understand the Argentine ways. Not just the ones that are advertised and are all around the internet, but the sides of Argentina that the tourists don’t experience.

What did you learn about the world through your experiences in Buenos Aires?

Through my experiences, I learned to appreciate simple things, such as waking up feeling fresh after a good night’s sleep. Volunteering with an NGO that works to alleviate poverty by providing extra living space, I went to a villa where there are no roads nor a sewage system, spent time in a house where there is no furniture nor heating system, slept on the ground for two nights… The basic needs that a lot of people take for granted were missing in these houses.

We had talked about poverty statistics in Argentina in my classes. Being there, I saw those statistics in action. And yet, the people still had mate, a common Argentine beverage, to share with us, the volunteers. We all drank from the same cup, the language barrier disappeared, as well as other factors that rendered us different. We were all people, working towards the same goal, and we all loved mate.

I was also volunteering weekly with an organization that works with families that live in a villa in the city of Buenos Aires in order to empower development. Volunteering at a daycare center, I helped kids with their homework, played hula-hoop, and organized language activities. These kids generally came from underprivileged backgrounds and had immigrant parents. This center was crucial for their development because they received educational assistance, nutritious food and were surrounded by people who genuinely cared about them.

Leaving the affluent neighborhood that I was living in to volunteer in deprecated neighborhoods and learn about the realities of Buenos Aires, developing relationships with underprivileged communities and listening to their stories, having conversations with my roommate about her internship – which was about living conditions in a poor neighborhood – made me think more and more about environmental justice problems that exist in Argentina, in Turkey, and all around the world.

The discussions we had in the Service Learning Seminar course were really eye-opening and thought-provoking for understanding the social issues in Argentina. Later on, my internship with an Argentine organization introduced me to the topics of international development and helped me place my volunteering experiences in an international development context.

What did you learn about yourself?

Studying abroad, for me, was as much about realization as it was about learning. The perspectives and experiences I gained in Argentina made me realize how much I care about opportunities for all, specifically for vulnerable populations. Maybe it was the freedom of being in a city with so many options, or it was the mindset of studying abroad – the pursuit of discovery and exploration. Experimenting, discovering, and opening yourself up to new experiences. Running into different scenarios of life and learning how to react. Learning what matters to you, and then carrying them with you along the way.

How has this experienced shaped your future? What’s next?

Through my experiences in Buenos Aires, I was exposed to different topics of community and global development and was inspired to study a topic that I deeply care about for my honors thesis. Moving forward, I plan to work in economic development, a field that I wasn’t familiar with until studying abroad.

If you could give one piece of advice to future study abroad students, what would it be?

Make sure to feel uncomfortable at least once every day.

Learn more about Idil's experiences in Buenos Aires on her IES Abroad Blog.