Ekaterina is from New York, NY and an alumna of the Chinese AY 2019-20 program in Beijing, China & Taipei, Taiwan.  I glanced at my watch. 11 pm. December 31st. This was the first time that I went to bed on

Sam O’Brien is an alumnus of the 2018 Indonesian Summer program in Jakarta, Indonesia.  Sam O’Brien was a participant on the inaugural NSLI-Y Indonesian program in the summer of 2018. Last summer, 2019, Sam traveled back to Jakarta, Indonesia, after

Emma is from Lakewood, CO and an alumna of the Arabic AY 2019-20 program in Rabat, Morocco.  Integrating into a new family can be difficult. I remember the first few days of living with my host family in Rabat, Morocco being

Brooklyn is from Los Angeles, CA and an alumna of the Arabic Virtual NSLI-Y Winter Cohort from January-March 2020. This past winter I was fortunate enough to participate in the new Virtual NSLI-Y program, which provides students the opportunity to

Julie is an alumna of the Arabic Virtual NSLI-Y Winter Cohort from January-March 2020. When my mom first told me about learning Arabic through Virtual NSLI-Y, I was quite interested; studying Arabic had been a dream of mine for some

Ben Marcus-Willers is an alumnus from the 2012-13 Academic Year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan It all started with a high school social studies project on the tea growing culture of East Asia. Ben had had an interest for tea since childhood,

Diogene is from Brooklyn, New York and participated in the 2017 Korean Summer Program in South Korea.  He is also a member of the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity and Equality Abroad) Committee. Over the summer, I was boarding a plane to

Grace is from Meridian, ID and an alumna of the 2019 Arabic summer program in Amman, Jordan. I grew up in Meridian, Idaho, where I had limited exposure to other cultures, religions, and ethnic groups. In my geographic bubble, the only