Katherine ready to expand her world view

My name is Katherine Eastman, and I'm a journalism and WGSS double major. I'm a senior, spending my last semester of college in Cape Town, South Africa. 

My parents have always encouraged me to seize opportunities to travel and expand my world view, so naturally when I learned of this opportunity to live abroad in a place vastly different from my comfortable home in Connecticut, I pursued it wholeheartedly. I feel blessed to be presented with the chance to travel and exist in South Africa, while studying topics that I feel passionate about. 

Above all, I want to return from this program with a firm understanding of the complex social dynamics in South Africa, and be able to relate them to current tensions in the USA. I hope that the experiences and knowledge I gain during my stay will give me the words to write well-informed, reliable pieces on social issues that involve race and gender, and to discuss these topics with others. I also hope to be more comfortable with uprooting myself and traveling more than I am now - I currently do not have much experience with leaving the country, or being very far from the comforts of home. I have some concerns about homesickness and culture shock, but I have confidence that these hurdles aren't too much for me to handle.

My thoughts on what's ahead of me are hazy, because my mind is still trained on the challenges of this semester. I think about next semester with some nervousness and anxiety, but mostly anticipation of seeing and doing things that will change my perceptions of others and also myself. I look forward to being friends with my fellow travelers, and enjoying this experience with them as much as possible, while making a positive impact on the community we're inserting ourselves into.