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Elise's Story Elise Boehm talks to Edie Kirk about her decision to study abroad in Cuba and what it was like once she got there. She shares stories about where she went and what she did but also how the people there made her feel more confident speaking Spanish. Scroll to listen Elise's Story 00:00 / 03:24 My sophomore year at Umass Amherst I decided to go study abroad in Cuba and everything I would say went pretty well. You know one of the first things we did when everybody was there was we got to ride the ya know old-school classic Cuba cars. Which was I think one of the coolest things ya know we could have done. We took a ride around Havana just sightseeing ya know we got to take pictures with the car, in the car, outside of the car and it was a lot of fun. It was probably one of the best memories I have ya know when we were all like in the cars side by side, we were just like recording taking videos ya know I think the most important lesson that I learned is that even though I was scared of trying something new ya know I am glad that I did it and that I didn't let the fear of trying something new get in the way of me experiencing this great opportunity I think some of the best memories I have are when I push myself out of my comfort zone and just try something new ya know I am grateful that despite this being scary, being away in a completely different country and traveling alone I didn't let that fear get in my way I started to ya know feel more confident as time went on I mean I push myself to try some new things I was very grateful for that and I guess another thing that I was I guess happy with was that I got to get away from internet and what was happening back home because where we were at theres no internet so if we wanted to use the internet we would have to walk a few blocks to the nearest hotel and we would have to sit there and we would have to buy an internet card and put it in our phones and they we would have internet for how ever many minutes and so then thats how we communicate with the people back home and ya know go on social media and everything you would do on the internet and I think that ya know that being so far away and us not having like internet readily accessible was a great experience because its like we werent focused on like what was happening back home, what people were posting, what we were posting and so it was a way that we could fully embrace the experience and just be in the culture be in Cuba without adding these extra distractions ya know we really got to really experience it and i think that is one thing that I am proud of is that i dont think anyone on that trip really complained about the difficulties of getting internet because we were all having such a good time we were always busy or finding something to do whether it be going to classes, or going to the beach, going to the museum ya know we were constantly busy we had these field trips that we would go on so i think it was definitely a good experience overall

Hellen's Story Hellen describes the way her house represents Africa from the mustard-yellow color on the outside to the smell on the inside and the white lace sheets over the doors. Her parents incorporate many pieces of Kenya with them in their home in the US, and continue many traditions from their past. Scroll to listen Hellen's Story 00:00 / 03:42 ​

< Back Talia's Story Talia talks to Charlie about her experience of studying abroad in Florence, Italy. She speaks about how she chose Florence as her host city. She tells us how studying abroad in Florence changed her and furthered her desire to travel the world. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 02:22 What makes you want to travel? Well, I have spent, I spent that last 6 months abroad and so that was really amazing. I got to go through school. I lived in Florence. And that was one of the the best experiences of my life I think and because of that I feel like I learned a lot about different cultures and I was able to learn a lot about myself as well and I reallized that the environment that I am living in and the people I am surrounded by really can make my life better and I think that a lot of people would feel the same way and so I think that traveling is something that will always be important to me in those aspects. What took you to Italy? So I originally was thinking of going to Greece and so I wanted to go somewhere that was warm, somewhere with beaches. I thought that would be amazing then I realized that I have my ancestry is all from Italy and so I thought that it would be really interesting to learn more about where I came from and the culture that I’m from and so that was really important to me. That was part of my decision. I also have heard of how beautiful Italy is and Florence that was and I knew that it was a smaller city it was something that could feel more homey than other cities I think. I think that was something I was looking for especially if I was going to be living there for an extended amount of time. I wanted somewhere that I felt comfortable with I also had my two roommates going with me and we all kind of decided that the food would be the best in Italy and that was something that we really wanted yeah just a bunch of different things led me to go there Previous Next

Francine's Story In her interview with Carolyn, Francine reflects on her time in Denmark back when she was a junior in college. She looks back fondly at the many memories and life lessons of her host, Frau Nielsen. Fran reflects on how Frau Nielsen changed her young mind’s conception of what it means to be old. Scroll to Listen Francine's Story 00:00 / 04:08 ‘Kay, so the person I want to tell you about is Frau Nielsen. It’s funny Frau is like Mrs. or Miss or something [in Danish], but that’s what I always called her. I think her first name was Marie, but I never used it. And she was the person I lived with when I was a junior in college and went to Denmark for a year. And she had a big impact on the way I viewed the world and my life. I had dinner with Frau Nielsen and what I really remember is that we just had these incredibly interesting conversations every single night. And, in fact, I tried to study Danish and the problem was… sometimes I’d say to her, “Let’s just try to speak Danish”. But then, all we could say was, you know, “How are you?”. You know, we couldn’t say anything interesting, so we’d always go back to English, which she was quite good [at]. Although sometimes, she would mix in a German word ‘cause she also knew German. Carolyn: So next, question. What are the most, or some of the most, valued lessons that Frau Nielsen taught you while you were over there? Okay so, the first lesson for me was, I would call it anti-ageism because when I was 20-years-old, I was really ageist. And when I first got to Denmark, all the people that were going to house students were waiting at the train. And there were these young families with kids and everything, and that was my image of what I was hoping to have. Although I already knew [it would be Fraun], because she had written me a letter that she wasn’t [young]. And I saw this old woman standing there. You know, it’s kind of funny now, because she was 67, which is six years younger than I am now. I remember my heart sank, I just thought, “Oh why did I get a bad choice?” or whatever. And it was, I had such a fantastic year because of her. So I realized how absurd that was. But also, I had all kinds of stereotypes like I thought it was just an amazing thing that she could ride a bicycle. I mean she would ride a bike to the train station. Now that I’m seventy-three, I have a friend who goes on 100-mile bike rides like it’s nothing. And even when I was older, even when I got better after knowing her, at my wedding, I invited the mother of my husband’s best friend in college. The mother was probably in her sixties and we thought it was so impressive that she had made her way to our house all by herself [laughs]. I mean it’s just ridiculous [Carolyn laughs]. Anyways so, I mean I did get better in that I thought older people were worth knowing. But I still probably harbored a lot of stereotypes even into my thirties. Anyways, so that was the first lesson. The other thing was she was so intellectually alive, and always always trying to learn new things like taking courses… And the first week that I got there, she had a birthday party for herself and she had a bunch of friends over. They had this discussion about what was the best American novel and they asked me my opinion, which I felt completely unqualified to give. I mean I had an opinion, but what struck me was like how intellectual they all were. And they weren’t all college professors, I mean she was a teacher but it’;s not like they had… It’s not like their profession was predominantly intellectual professions. They just were intellectual. It's just really… something that I think about everyday, that I just want to keep learning. And I really learned that from her.

Hannah's Story Hannah talks about the risk that she took in studying abroad in Amsterdam and her experience amercing herself in the culture by herself and how it impacted her future career path. Scroll to listen Hannah's Story 00:00 / 02:07 Would you tell me about a time that you took a risk? A time I took a risk was going abroad last semester, my fall semester, senior year to Amsterdam. And I know it's like cliche like, oh yeah, you like go abroad, whatever. But I really wanted my abroad experience to be as natural as possible. I didn't want to go to an American school in a foreign country. I didn't want to go to a school where I knew I was going to be surrounded by other American college students. I really wanted to just like go abroad and experience like culture shock like head on. So I decided to go to fret university type in Amsterdam, like by myself. I didn't know, I didn't know it was. So when I got there, I literally like booked my flight a week before and just got on a plane and shipped myself off to Amsterdam knowing no one. And yeah, that was the time I really did take a risk. And what did you learn about yourself? Did learn that taking a risk is not only can I do it and I'm very capable um but like it just gave me that confidence that I can take risks in the future. And that taking risks actually is a good thing. And I have so many positive outcomes from doing it and I really have made some of my best friends um throughout the world just doing that experience. And so post grad, I'm a senior. So I'm graduating next at the end of the semester in like a month, which is terrifying. But I, I decided to take a job in South Korea, um, teaching English, which I never, I never would have done, had I not taken that risk to go to Amsterdam because it's like a similar situation where I don't know a soul there. I don't know a soul in Seoul. Um, but I, I don't know anyone there. I'm just going by myself to a country that's thousands of miles away, um, with a 13 hour time zone, like, and I'm ok with it and I'm excited for it and I'm, I'm not crying because of stress this time, but I'm really excited.

Kathleen Becker's Story Kathleen describes her path to becoming a speech pathologist. She describes her experience growing up with her younger sister Margaret Mary who was born with cerebral palsy. As a child she tried to find ways to help her sister learn to speak. Later, she took her first speech pathology course in college, and went on to work in a private practice and at an elementary school. Kathleen Becker's Story 00:00 / 04:49 I feel lucky in the way I found speech and language pathology, because I certainly didn't know anything about it when I was growing up. But how I got into it started with my sister. And when she was born, she sort of changed our family because she was born very, very disabled. She had very severe Cerebral Palsy. And there were no services available for people with disabilities then unless you were paying for it privately. And our family was working class and they had seven kids and they really didn't have any money. And it really changed my family. I mean, my mother became very depressed and my father started drinking more than he had even been drinking before. And it was devastating to the family. And so first being raised Catholic and being very fervent, I would sprinkle holy water on her. I would pray to God all the time. I would make deals with God. That if like, he would get one of her legs working, it would be okay if one of my legs didn't work. She was very, very disabled. She never learned how to walk or talk or could feed herself. She was basically like an infant. So I set about trying to teach my sister how to talk. And one day I had gotten her propped up in such a way and I had practiced enough with her that I told her that I was gonna call my mother in. And that when Mom came in, that then I wanted her to say ‘hi’, which is what I had taught her to say. And my mom walked in the room and now you're thinking like my mom's kind of depressed already to begin with. And she walks in the room and I say to her, I say to Margaret, say ‘hi’ to mom. And Margaret does. She says, ‘ah-hi’, which is how you say hi when you inhale. And I thought it was really cool that I had taught her how to say hi, but my mother just turned around and walked out of the room and never said anything about it. And that was pretty devastating to me because I just really didn't understand why my mom didn't think that this was really great, like, look, she can do this. My first job that I went to was in a very impoverished area called the Northeast Kingdom. And I worked there with preschoolers. And I met my first child who didn’t speak at all. And I was really confronted with the fears that I had from when I tried to teach my sister who couldn't talk at all. It's called the Northeast Kingdom. And I worked there with this boy. And he just understood everything I said to him. He should have been able to talk, but he just, anything I tried, he just looked at me and shook his head, no. He wasn't gonna do it. So one day I was like in such a panic, he came to the clinic and I just forgot everything that I learned in graduate school about how you're supposed to be a professional. And I just remembered my sister and that when I would play with her, I would just do things that she really liked the best. And so I just, I picked him up, I took him, I put him in my car and I drove to a horse stable where there was a baby horse there. And his mother had told me he liked baby animals. And when we got ready to leave the stable, he ran up to the horses and I heard him speak. I heard him say, ‘bye bye, horsey.’ And so when the next day he came into the clinic, I had gotten some new books, some Sesame Street books that I knew he liked Sesame Street. And he climbed in my lap and I, you know, I was basically, you know, he's pointing to the books and I'm like, yeah, David, I know, I know, I know you like Sesame Street, but it was so much fun with you at the stable yesterday. And I heard you talk to the horses. I heard you say bye-bye to the horses. So now that I know that you really can talk, I want you to tell me who this is. And he just looked at me and he said, oh, that's Ernie. And after that, he opened page after page of the book and he did have problems speaking. He sounded funny when he spoke. And it's because he had what's called the repaired cleft palate, which is a hole in the roof of your mouth, but it had been repaired when he was a baby. And so he knew that he sounded different and we would spend, you know, many months working on making his speech better. But that initial when I got to be the person who got to hear him speak first, just like I got to hear my sister speak first, that one word. Previous Next

< Back Juli's Story Juli speaks with Jacqueline about her time at summer camp as a kid. At this camp, Juli met someone who didn’t fit in. But Juli learned how a little kindness could go a long way. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 02:06 Yeah I think I dont know how old I was maybe 10 years old and it was ya know mostly I went to summer camp ya know girl scout camps but it was a camp at the end of camp um they always had this big camp fire at the end of the week at camp and everyone would come and they gave an award it was like a good citizen award to the person who best exemplified the values of ya know camping and girl scouting and I got the award It shocked me cause I didnt feel like I distinguished myself in anyway at that point i didnt really excel as a student when was young it wasnt until i got older but um and I relaized and I had to think about it for a few minutes why did they give me this and i think it was because there was a girl who was assigned to my tent that year and I always went by myself I didnt know other campers and it wa a tent with 4 cots one of th egirsl was um she was clearly from a poor family probably there on a grant and um she was very awkward very awkward physically and socially and ya know just had a hard time fitting in ya know and that was clear to me and the other 2 girls in our tent wanted absolutely nothing to do with her and so I always made sure ya know when we go out for walks in the woods wed have to have a buddy and i would ask her to be my buddy and I made sure she wasnt sitting alone um at meal times um ya know I just tried to be kind with her even though i didnt really connect with her cause she wasn't easy to engage with but I just tried to be kind and I think thats why I got the award and it was an important lesson to me ya know the value of kindness Previous Next

Jonathan Daube's Story ​ Jonathan Daube's Story 00:00 / 04:23 ​ Previous Next

Jake's Story Jake reflects on two similar scenarios he has encountered with bees and how that has made him realize the power of one’s own mindset when it comes to handling situations differently. He talks about how he keeps a positive mindset which has translated into looking at things in a more gratifying way and spreading positivity in other aspects of his life. Jake's Story 00:00 / 04:45 I guess my story starts when I was going into High School, the summer going into High School, basically both these instances are times that I got stung by the entire nest of wasps. So the first incident was with my friends. Then we did sort of a hide and seek tag game. I decided it would be good to hide in the woods next to his house instead of like in the yard you know extra secretive. I go like slightly off the path because obviously if I'm on the path I can be seen and then as I'm waiting I feel sort of like things in my legs and I have no idea what it is so I'm like oh oh and then I start running away and it's actually horrible cuz as I'm running like that's like the worst thing you can do obviously. So it gets more traumatic so I'm running down the street and the type, I’ve never been stung by a wasp nest, and basically the pain waves are like sort of comes in like waves and I realize after it's on purpose cuz I was obviously stuck multiple times but the waves make it feel like you're being stung like a million times. So I'm running down the street and then I'm like no it's stuck in my shirt so I take off my shirt. Like I said, eventually now I'm completely panicked. I sit down like my friend's mom is out and she's also panicked. I’m exhausted. According to the fire department, I passed out for five seconds or whatever, so overall horrible and I didn't think it would happen again. Then in my summer camp job, it was all outdoors because of Covid so they weren't inside and I had to walk the kids to basically the other side of the school where there is a bathroom Just as I am walking completely innocently I see one little like wasp thing near like a hole and the kids are all lined up behind me and I walk just completely on the sidewalk, not on the grass, and they all attack me. So here I was and not a single one attacked the kids, just me. They're like in shock but it was a completely different situation and I feel like basically the essence of the story is that like the power of your mind and like sort of your mindset. So in that case, I was literally just standing there and I just took it and I was like oh my like I was just completely calm and it was crazy that happened twice in the reactions were so different and it wasn't it wasn't because you know I know I was stung by bees before so I learned from it. It was more just that you know here I was a camp counselor so I was like oh I have to act calm you know so like if a bee stings you you’re not going to panic. If ten sting you you’re going to try and not panic either and that reaction really stayed with me. I was all red and they and I then I continued walking them to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom. I took them to the bathroom. You know I was fine. Completely different reaction and just reflecting on that was like sort of the importance of your mind and like how your body reacts cuz it really does have a connection I feel like. One of my favorite character traits of me is my positive attitude on things. One of the ways I sort of like I think naturally I am positive but one of the ways I got to be so positive was I started doing gratitude journaling. Before bed I would just close my eyes and instead of thinking about random things during the day I would just think about things I was positive about and then I would just fall asleep and that would be the ending of my day. It was actually super cool cuz like first of all you don't realize how many good things happen every day but then also I started being like during my day I was looking for things that I could write or tell myself at the end to like add to my list. And then eventually after a while after a few weeks of doing that then just subconsciously I was like absorbing positive things and it was like it was super cool and I actually started texting sometimes I text my friends instead of doing it before bed I'll just text my friends randomly like things I’m grateful for like that day and then a lot of times they text back things they're grateful for so I hope that sort of spreads the positive mindset stuff or whatever. The bee situation, looking back I think it encapsulated how Previous Next

< Back Owen's Story Owen discusses how he went to college during the Vietnam War and what he learned from not only the education and the professors but also the people he attended the university with. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:11 When I was 19, approximately, there was something going on called the Vietnam War and you probably studied it in ancient history or something like that, but for those of us who didn't really want to get out there and get shot at we had to find ways to not do that. And we also didn’t believe that war was necessary. So I was a part of a group of people, there were many many of us, who said no this was not a good idea, and the only way I could stay out was to go to college. So I went to college. Another thing that was big in my life is when I went into college was meeting different people from different parts of the world and more so different parts of the country but I did meet a few people from outside the US. And some people have big influences on you, some people have small influences on you and some people you just dont understand. Part of the not understanding is you just have to learn to accept people as they are. I would say the majority of kids that I was in classes with were white from middle class suburban cities around, middle class suburbs from large cities around the country. I went to school in St. Louis and I came from a suburb around Washington DC. There were so many people from so many other places that were similar to me, then I got to meet people who were different to me. I remember, one young woman came from Hawaii and she was native Hawaiian and that was cool. I had never met anyone from Hawaii before. One day it snowed, and she ran outside and she went absolutely berzerc running in between the snowflakes because she had read about it, seen it in movies, but she had never experienced snow before. And I thought, “Okay, this is cool.” You know, just trying to understand someone's frame of mind, especially when you grow up with snow. You know its like what's this snow. And this is like a life changing event for her. And I thought Okay, that’s cool. It is to be able to do that and not to judge someone based on things like that. And I grew up in a society where alot of people were not accepted as they were. Alot of minorities were looked down upon and legally discriminated against. You know that sort of has gone away but not entirely. There was no such thing as people who were openly gay, that just didn’t happen during that period of time. People did not date interracially. You know you never saw a white woman with ablack guy. It just didnt happen. So when you start meeting people that are different and meeting people that are a little outside your realm of experience you learn about them and learn to accept them. That was a huge thing for me. To transition from living with stereotypes which are reinforced by things like TV shows to getting to know people and understanding who the people were. And understanding a person as a person, not just put into a category- a stereotype. Part of going to school was that piece of education. Previous Next

< Back Sharon's Story Sharon shares about the influence that her hardworking, loving grandmother had on her and how this influence guided her to be the person she is today. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:08 Some of the places that we went to, as I say we have traveled around the world, and you realize when you travel that while the architecture and the historic aspects are interesting, it’s the people who make the difference. We’d always try and somehow connect with folks wherever we were and that made it especially nice. It was interesting because you can read forever about different cultures but, until you talk to the people while you are there it isn’t really illuminated, and so the people flesh out the sense you have of the culture. Previous Next

Emily W's Story Emily W talks to Emily L about how the feminist movement has shaped her growing up and how the culture of women's liberation influenced her ideologies and life. Scroll to Listen Emily W's Story 00:00 / 04:39 The feminist movement which was then mostly called Women's liberation movement was a major civil rights movement when I was growing up in the sixties and seventies. In high school I started paying attention to national leaders like Gloria Steinem in particular, who had started Miss Magazine which was kind of the first thing that was called a women's magazine that wasn't about housekeeping and cooking and among many other things she said that women needed to recognize and fight for the right for recognition and equality, the idea that women were equal. It seems like such common sense, but it wasn't people didn't always act as if that was common sense. In a lot of ways I felt that my whole life, but especially when I went to college I went to a women's college, Wilson college in Pennsylvania and I learned academically some of the things that I was picking up from the culture from women's liberation, things about, you know women have always been pioneers, but our history has been often hidden either accidentally or on purpose. Certain women have always defied the norms and excelled but they have not always been celebrated. Just that there were a lot of hidden stories of women, both individual and national. So feminism made me question a lot of the norms that I've grown up with. I certainly was never told as a kid that I wasn't equal to a man. I was always told well you can do whatever you want to do. But the culture saw until I grew up with these sort of Unthinking things around the T. V. Ads magazines. And that in my hometown was the college that my mom went to which was this women's college. It turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done in my life. When I got there I realized-- I mean it's sort of like my intellectual life took off. There were certainly efforts made by most of the professors to bring women's history or whatever into the curriculum. So in some way I definitely got more academic knowledge than I might have been at another school. But mainly it was just being around all women and when women have all the opportunities women take all the roles. So it was nobody saying you can do this. It was just if you wanted to do it you did it. And so it wasn't political at all. It was just like learning by doing oh you can do anything, you really can do anything. The baseline assumptions have changed considerably and it's much more than the norm for women to have a choice of how they lived their lives. That's kind of the bedrock change. So I think the biggest change probably is that the assumption of inferiority since it and it wasn't all that women couldn't do as good a job at things but there was always the assumption that you probably didn't even want to give women a chance in the workplace or anything serious because they would get married and or have kids and then leave, and so therefore you really needed to give men the opportunities that we're serious. And I don't think that happens as much. There's still some of it, but I don't think nearly as much overall about feminism, it's certainly not a big hot topic today and the way that it was when I was growing up, but I think although there's so much more to be done, it's okay that it's not a hot topic because it doesn't need to be in quite the same way that second wave feminism, which is the era that I grew up, made some progress and therefore feminism for a lot of people could be put on the back burner because men and women and people of other genders just sort of take it far more likely to take it for granted that, of course everybody has self determination. So I don't personally take any credit for that, but I think my generation as a whole, and the generation just before me, um, can take some some credit for kicking up a lot of fuss and making things happen.