CIIS

As I attended the semester in NYC, I was also embarking on my first experience living in a
bigger city. Not only was I excited for the sheer magnitude of the city, I hoped to explore my
interests in creating communities that engage within, beyond, and in opposition to the status
quo. An interest that, in part, emerged from my studies that explore the powerful, healing,
and educational value in counter-hegemonic community projects/gatherings – and that is
exactly what I did.

Due to the generosity of the Giltz Family Fund for International and Intercultural
Education, I was able to travel to Frankfurt, Germany and Berlin, Germany to collect data for
my Global Studies honors Senior Year Experience (SYE): Narratives of Genocide - the
Impact of Informal and Formal Education on Representations of German History. My focus
specifically on the Namibian Genocide and the Holocaust, alongside broader themes of
German colonization and their role in World War II, guided my research process as I visited
various museums and memorials.

As I studied abroad in Vienna, Austria, I had the opportunity to visit the many countries that
surrounded it and beyond. In my time abroad I traveled to nine countries outside of my host
country- Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, and
Menorca- immersing myself in the cultures and traditions native to each country. The program in
Austria encouraged us to travel and gave us the opportunity to learn by providing us with culture,
economic and language courses.

As a student majored in International Economics and Multilanguage and a minor in Statistics, I had a transforming experience abroad in Toulouse, France. Most importantly I spent my time abroad in France utilizing my French and Arabic language skills and expanding my knowledge of those cultures. I was able to live with a French host family, study international relations and environmental sustainability at a French private university and build relationships with French people.

During the Fall 2021 semester, I had the life-changing opportunity to study off campus in the heart of New York City. The off-campus opportunities offered at St. Lawrence University was one of the central reasons I decided to make this place my new home, and a chance to live in the city for four months brought this dream to fruition. Over the next couple of months, I balanced an internship at the office of U.S.

In the fall on 2021 I studied abroad in Belfast in the north of Ireland. While abroad I received a Travel Enrichment Grant to travel to Derry and Glasgow, Scotland. Both cities are recipients of the European Capital of Culture Award. In October I traveled to Derry from Belfast by train which was about two hours each way. While in Derry I went to the Tower Museum and explored free Derry. Derry is a city rich with history of the conflict that happened here in the north and the museum exemplifies the history of conflict and the art that came out of it.

In mid-December 2021 I said goodbye to my host family, friends, and professors and traveled from Madrid to a very small area called Siurana in the Autonomous Community of Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan and Cataluña in Spanish). The trip proved to be a spectacular celebratory end to my semester abroad on St. Lawrence’s Spain program, and allowed me to say farewell to Spain in a very special way.

I am an English literature and Francophone studies double major. I studied abroad in Toulouse, France during the fall of 2021, and at the same time, I conducted research on Anne of Brittany. In my research, I sought to further study her varied representations during and after her life in connection to her identity as a woman. Anne was queen of France twice in her life and duchess of Brittany. Her representation is contested largely due to her identity as a woman during the Middle Ages.

In the fall of 2020, several Arab countries normalised relations with Israel. This came as a shock at the time as rising tensions in Palestine caused mass protests in western countries. One of those countries was my study abroad destination, The United Arab Emirates. I decided to find out what the people of the Emirates thought about their government’s sudden shift in policy, especially for such an emotional issue. So I first set off to the three most populous emirates to the west of Jebel Al-Jais to interview people on this touchy subject.