I have been anticipating this trip in some form or another for the past seven months. I didn’t begin to seriously consider studying abroad until the second semester of my junior year, well past when most students study abroad or make plans to do so. For a hell of a long time I was scared away from studying abroad because I felt like doing so had the potential to be exploitative and shallow. At an involvement fair during my first year at UConn I visited the booth of a club that boasted of planning medical service trips to Latin America, where the participants had the opportunity to gain “hands-on medical experience” by pulling teeth, no prior training or language experience required. Naturally, I immediately envisioned some cheery undergrad ripping teeth out of the mouth of an elderly woman with whom she could not communicate, before taking a series of selfies and posing for a group photo with the local village kids.
This impression of mine, whether accurate or not, was boosted by stories I heard of similar trips that served as transparent excuses to party in Latin America and add a few lines to one’s resume. These impressions discouraged me from considering study abroad. Beyond that, I had reservations about studying abroad in South Africa because I was unsure of how to acknowledge and manage my privilege, and I was afraid of participating in a modern re-enactment of the same age-old colonial acts that led to subjugation and exploitation of indigenous peoples and environments worldwide. As you can tell, I had a lot on my mind.
My decision not to study abroad began to weaken during my junior year, when two of my best friends were traveled to Cape Town in Spring 2013. I was eager to hear of their impressions and experiences. Furthermore, I began a research internship at the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut, and I was encouraged wholeheartedly to seek out appropriate international experiences if I was truly interested in working with high-risk populations. Receiving this recommendation from multiple members of ICR’s intellectually and culturally diverse research staff began to convince me of the value of studying abroad. Finally, it was the experience of speaking with multiple past Cape Town participants that convinced me to go. Several of my closest friends and other phenomenal students whom I admire have gone to Cape Town, and in discussion after discussion they raved about the experience and assuaged my concerns. I arranged to meet with Marita McComiskey, the trip director, several weeks before the application deadline, and speaking with her was enough to convince me that this was an experience that I not only wanted, but also needed.
After that point, all I needed to do was apply. For this and other reasons, Fall 2013 became by far my most successful semester at UConn. I was able to finally design, defend, and declare my individualized major, a process that had intimidated and stymied me for almost two years. I was able to recruit three phenomenal and influential advisors to my cause, and enrolled in courses that were at the core of my major, including my first graduate course. I continued my work at ICR with a 4 credit internship, all while working as an RA in East Campus and a member of UConn’s first cohort of Resident Assistants for Social Justice Education, a job that I committed a combined 30 hours per week towards. Amongst these responsibilities, I had a series of fantastic experiences and achievements: I completed in my first triathlon* in September, backpacked through the Grand Canyon over fall break, went skydiving for the first time, attended a fantastic diversity conference with the RASJEs, managed to get my first 4.0 term GPA in college, and executed some ambitious programming within the RASJE program. Perhaps most promisingly, I was accepted to study abroad in Cape Town. To my legitimate disbelief and skepticism, my best-laid plans had all panned out almost exactly as envisioned, and my path to graduation, for the first time since coming to UConn, was laid out clearly ahead of me. The successes I experienced this semester, and the enduring positive regard I have received from family, friends, and co-workers, has restored my confidence in myself to realize the goals I set for myself, a confidence that had been lost to me for years. I’m excited to write the next chapter of my life in Cape Town, and to discover the unimaginable opportunities that the future holds.
Cheers!
What David Does 