Many high school and college students intend to study abroad, with only vague notions of foreign escapades and intrigue, as a sort of extended tourist vacation. Haven, a current New York University Sophomore and former Creative Marbles Consultancy client, agreed to share a more detailed picture for students wishing to live and study internationally, while she’s spending her Spring 2013 semester in London.
“My adventures in London, and the primary school students I work with here, have lead me to think a lot lately about culture and cultural identity. It’s one of those vague, unhelpful terms that people say when they are trying to sound smart or worldly, but I think I’m beginning to wrap my head around it. Well, I’m beginning to understand its significance, anyway. I came into the semester with the nice, and not wrong, but admittedly somewhat naive attitude of “How hard can it be? we are all people, right?” But culture can be a difficult thing to over come, and it is something that I need to keep in mind when interacting with people. This realization inspired me to ask my parents about my own heritage, something that I’ve never really considered as part of my identity until I came here and experienced real cultural dissonance for the first time. I am hoping that knowledge of my own heritage and culture will orient me not just in London, but in my larger life as well.”
For more about Haven’s European sojourn, see her blog: There and Back Again: A Haven’s Tale
Photo Credit: Haven Mitchell-Rose, 2013
