This is my attempt to go to South Africa,
if there are suggestions....please let me know!
WHAT IS YOUR PRIMARY PROFESSIONAL INTEREST FOLLOWING GRADUATION?
Education policy has been the driving force behind my academic interests and pursuits. I am looking forward to using the knowledge and skills that I gain from this program to work professionally in the field of education. My goal is that my experiences here will make me a viable candidate for a position with the Department of Education either federally or on the state level. Also, I would love the opportunity to work with a nonprofit that has an education focus such as the Black Alliance for Educational Opportunity or with a charter school to help develop curriculum, communications, and administration. Alternatively, working as a government liaison to a charter school district would also be under my consideration.
2. In the space provided below, please discuss how you think this travel experience will enhance your academic program and career goals.
Throughout my undergraduate career, I have heard many students, professors, and scholars state that studying abroad will change a person’s life. People return to their homes after having mind-numbing epiphanies, unparalleled sensations of self-awareness, and memories of the most phenomenal human beings they have ever met. After traveling abroad myself, I fully understood the essence of these attitudes. Studying abroad is a mind-opening experience essential to the progression of education.
The focus of this trip hits my academic program precisely. Education, whose policies rest in the hands of the local people that contribute to the structure, evaluation, and support of schools, is the metaphoric blossom of civic engagement. The community is one of the most important aspects of a healthy school culture. An understanding of how communities work with government and nonprofit agencies will allow me to develop the tools to become an active agent of change in the community. For my analytical paper, I am considering doing research about charter schools in South Africa and their administrative relationships to the United States.
Professionally, as I aspire to work in an education system that promotes the ideal of autonomy throughout its entire policy, this trip will give me first hand experience with public interest nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations that work at their capacity to be proponents of social and economic change. The opportunity to view these entities and their relationships with the community will be incomparable. South Africa, a country that has suffered under some of the harshest policy regimes in the twentieth century has an ample amount to teach Americans about their interactions with institutions, government, and citizenry. This experience will allow me to bring international experiences to the policymaking process as a source of comparison, systemic modeling, and intra-community support.
The focus of this trip hits my academic program precisely. Education, whose policies rest in the hands of the local people that contribute to the structure, evaluation, and support of schools, is the metaphoric blossom of civic engagement. The community is one of the most important aspects of a healthy school culture. An understanding of how communities work with government and nonprofit agencies will allow me to develop the tools to become an active agent of change in the community. For my analytical paper, I am considering doing research about charter schools in South Africa and their administrative relationships to the United States.
Professionally, as I aspire to work in an education system that promotes the ideal of autonomy throughout its entire policy, this trip will give me first hand experience with public interest nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations that work at their capacity to be proponents of social and economic change. The opportunity to view these entities and their relationships with the community will be incomparable. South Africa, a country that has suffered under some of the harshest policy regimes in the twentieth century has an ample amount to teach Americans about their interactions with institutions, government, and citizenry. This experience will allow me to bring international experiences to the policymaking process as a source of comparison, systemic modeling, and intra-community support.
3. How might your participation in the study trip benefit other members of the study group?
Carter G. Woodson, author of The Miseducation of the Negro once said, “The educational system of a country is worthless unless it revolutionizes the social order. Men [and women] of scholarship, and prophetic insight, must show us the right way and lead us into light which is shining brighter and brighter.” It is this quote that best identifies how we should view our opportunities in education, especially our opportunities to study abroad. These particular occasions should birth the knowledge and skill sets to create students not only of academic disciplines but also of human society and the world itself.
I am viewing this study experience as an opportunity to cultivate relationships with my peers so that as an academically and socially diverse group, we can work together to be more than just the Ghandian change we hope to see in the world. We need to build cross discipline and career alliances and kinships so that our dichotomy of academics and public service will be an example of cohesive public administrative work. We each have a role that we need to play in forming this important relationship.
It is my hope that I will bring my personal and professional characteristics to the group such as enthusiasm, passion, and critical thinking. However, I would like to use some of my academic skills in a unique way. As an undergraduate major, I studied film production. I worked on documentaries and am currently working on a documentary of a trip to Egypt I took earlier this summer. I would like to do a documentary presentation of our trip to South Africa, focusing on the reactions of students to what we will see, experience, and take from this study trip. Working with other students, we could create an electronic journal of all of our experiences including video, audio, and writing reactions to our brothers in sisters in South Africa and the remarkable work they are doing.
I am viewing this study experience as an opportunity to cultivate relationships with my peers so that as an academically and socially diverse group, we can work together to be more than just the Ghandian change we hope to see in the world. We need to build cross discipline and career alliances and kinships so that our dichotomy of academics and public service will be an example of cohesive public administrative work. We each have a role that we need to play in forming this important relationship.
It is my hope that I will bring my personal and professional characteristics to the group such as enthusiasm, passion, and critical thinking. However, I would like to use some of my academic skills in a unique way. As an undergraduate major, I studied film production. I worked on documentaries and am currently working on a documentary of a trip to Egypt I took earlier this summer. I would like to do a documentary presentation of our trip to South Africa, focusing on the reactions of students to what we will see, experience, and take from this study trip. Working with other students, we could create an electronic journal of all of our experiences including video, audio, and writing reactions to our brothers in sisters in South Africa and the remarkable work they are doing.
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