Summer 2019
This summer was definitely the best I’ve EVER had, and also somewhat productive! We love that! After school ended I went home for about a week, which was very fast but definitely a good amount of time to visit with family, see a few friends, and celebrate an early 21stbirthday. From there I traveled to Dublin for a few days by myself, and then I headed to the Netherlands for an Honors study abroad program! For all the details you can read the blog, or the experiential learning application, OR the experiential learning reflection, but in short this was the best. I made some INCREDIBLE friends, made amazing memories, and got to visit two new cities! We balled pretty hard in the Netherlands, which would come back to haunt my financial situation for weeks to come, but I don’t regret it at all. The older I get, the more firmly I believe that if you want something, get it. Whether that means literally buying something, having an experience, or figuratively achieving an intangible goal, the idea is the same.
From the Netherlands I traveled to London for a program with King’s College London. The class itself was called the psychology and profiling of terrorism, but I would NOT say that this was the focus of the class. It was basically just various case studies of terrorist groups and general research that has been done. In some sense this could be called profiling, but there was absolutely no psychology involved. Regardless, I muddled through and finished the class! I’m still waiting to hear about whether I passed or not, but my fingers are crossed (there were some attendance mix-ups that could cost me the grade if they aren’t corrected). Again, all of the London trip is on the blog, but it was a very different experience from the Netherlands. Since no one else from UW was on the trip, I had to make a LOT of new friends very quickly, which luckily happened!
Here I am with a few of my friends from UNC who were on the London study abroad program with me. This was one of our adventures to the Mayfield Lavender Farms where we had high tea. From left to right: Anna, Anne, and me!
This button takes you to my final paper from my study abroad in London. I chose to write about the role of women in terrorist groups, a topic which was completely new to me. Although this program was nothing like what I expected in terms of content, the exercise of writing this research paper taught me a lot of new and interesting information, which I feel like I can apply to future classes as a new perspective from which to examine gender roles.
Here I am with some of my best friends from the Honors abroad program outside of the Van Gogh Museum. This was one of the most impactful site visits for me personally, and was also a ton of fun to visit. From left to right: Brian, Kleitia, Jack, Talia, and me!
All of my new friends go to UNC, so I’m not sure if/when I’ll see them again, but hopefully it happens! Although my new friends were awesome, also got to spend a lot more time alone in London than in the Netherlands, which allowed for a very different experience. I think I took in more of my surroundings, but I’m not sure that I prefer this experience to the memory-making one. Nonetheless, it was valuable to learn how to be on my own abroad, and also to tap into my own interests and choose my activities based on those. All in all, my two programs should constitute three classes (assuming I pass at KCL), two Honors and one psychology. Not bad! When I return to school I will be focusing on finishing departmental honors, but also an education minor, so I won’t be taking psych classes, really, just doing my own research.
After returning home, I rested and visited friends and family some more before heading up to the lake with my mom. As always, Minnesota was a welcome break from the rest of my life! I love a few days of living a slow life. Now it’s back to Seattle for recruitment! I’m so excited to see all of my friends again, and to move into our very own house (Coco Mansion!!!)!!
This button takes you to the presentation from my final group project on the Honors study abroad program. To culminate all we had learned about innovation in cultural institutions, we devised an innovation proposal for the children's museum in Seattle. We decided to focus on the population of homeless single mothers in Seattle by creating a program that the museum could offer that would accommodate their unique situations by helping them find work and also take care of their children.