By Chelsea Korn, '14
Editor-in-Chief
Have you ever wanted to travel the world? To see new places, meet new people
and have experiences you’ll remember forever? Former Sterling graduate and Silver
Scroll editor Katelyn Sullivan had the opportunity to do just that and
more when she received a competitive scholarship known as the Fulbright
Experience to study abroad this summer in England. A double major at Rowan
University, Kate is extremely accomplished and maintained a travel blog about
her time in England. She was kind enough to take the time out of her busy
schedule to answer a few questions for the Silver Scroll about her
amazing summer in England.
The
Silver Scroll: How has traveling
abroad changed your perspective of the world we live in, especially your
perspective of life and culture in America?
 |
Katelyn hanging out on the River Thames, near the Tower Bridge
Photo credit: http://kmarysullivan.blogspot.co.uk/
|
The Silver Scroll: You
maintained a blog about your experience, and you were once a member of the
Silver Scroll yourself. How has this experience of keeping a travel blog
influenced the way you write and function as a writer?
Katelyn: Keeping a travel blog
was a great experience for me as a writer because it pushed me in new
directions. I had never written anything like this before and never for such a
large audience. The blog forced me to keep to a mostly consistent schedule as
well as to record my experiences in the most engaging way possible. The blog
was not easy to write – I would often get back to my room close to midnight
after having spent a physically exhaustive day hiking and sightseeing and want
to do nothing but fall straight into bed. I had to manage my time and write
despite my exhaustion. I quickly realized after looking at my blog’s page view
hits that my blog had reached a far wider audience than I had ever anticipated
and was even being read by complete strangers from all over the world!
Realizing this, I strove to make my blog more accessible to an international
audience. It was a lot of pressure to write so much so quickly and for so large
an audience, but the experience definitely made me a better writer. I was able
to explore a genre I had never written before – the travelogue – and
incorporate elements of imagery, humor, and voice into my writing, while under
a fair amount of pressure, making for an exciting learning experience that I am
sure will inform my future writing.
The Silver Scroll: How would you describe the experience of
seeing the things you learned come to life ("seeing Shakespeare the way
it's to be seen") and applying your major and schoolwork to real life
situations/scenarios?
Katelyn: Much of
the literature and history that we learn in school traces its roots to England,
which was one of the main reasons I was so excited to go there. Seeing Macbeth performed live on stage in the
recreated Globe Theatre was perhaps the culmination of this. When you read Shakespeare
in class or even watch a film version, you can learn a lot, but you’re not
experiencing it the way Shakespeare intended. Shakespeare didn’t write his
plays to be analyzed by high schoolers in five paragraph essays – he wrote them
to entertaining and emotional! When you see his work performed on his recreated
stage and the actors are right in front of you screaming and clawing at the
stage and full of raw emotion, you “get” why it’s so good and so enduring.
That’s sometimes hard to realize when you’re reading it in class and you can
barely understand the text. I had a similar experience with history. I’m a
history major, so I love reading and writing about it, but reading about the
blitzkrieg in a book can only tell you so much. Exeter was bombed by the
Germans during WWI and you can see where most of the bombs fell. There are rows
of old buildings in the city center and then suddenly a line of 1950s style
buildings appear that replaced the ones that had been destroyed during the war.
There is also a preserved ruin of an almshouse that had been bombed and you can
see the outline of the rooms the poor had stayed and ultimately been
incinerated in. A book simply can’t convey the feeling you get when you look at
these buildings and realize what happened.
The Silver Scroll: Why did you decide to maintain a blog about your
Fulbright Experience?
Katelyn: I decided to maintain a
blog about my Fulbright Experience because I wanted to be able to go back and
relive my experiences through my writing. Of course, I could have also done
this through a diary, but I wanted to share my experiences with my family,
friends, and anyone else who was interested in studying abroad in the UK, which
made the blog a perfect format. A large part of being a Fulbright awardee is
being an ambassador for your host country and institute and the blog was a
great way to represent that.
 |
| Katelyn reflects on her experience Photo credit: http://kmarysullivan.blogspot.co.uk |
Katelyn: Traveling with students
from around the world was one of the most interesting and fun parts of the
entire Fulbright experience. I found that there were many similarities as well
as differences in our daily lives. My friends from Hong Kong for instance had
never driven a car, depending on the subway to get around the city, and most of
them lived high up in apartment buildings, a very different experience from my
suburbia, car commuting-centered life. A student I met from Egypt lives in
Cairo and has to commute two hours by car to her university even though it’s in
the same city because traffic is so bad. A friend from the Netherlands told me
that he had been to the Northeast U.S. and found the people there cold and
unfriendly. He said that Dutch people are much more likely to make small talk
with strangers and socialize. My friends from China live under internet
censorship and cannot have Facebook, much to their frustration. Most of my
fellow Indian students were vegetarians and practicing Hindus. Every country
represented there except for the U.S. had a drinking age of 18 or lower and all
of my international friends were shocked that the U.S.’s age was 21. Many of
the students were familiar with British and American popular culture and my
Hong Kong friends and I oddly bonded over our shared love of Japanese pop
culture (i.e. Pokémon, Sailor Moon, Miyazaki movies etc.) which we had all
grown up with. Ultimately, I found that no matter where we came from, where we
went to school, what gender or even age we were, all of us love music and
movies and art, holidays and leisure days, eating good food, visiting new
places and learning new things, and spending time with our loved ones.
The Silver Scroll: Finally, what is your advice to students who
wish to travel while in college? What are some tips you have for maintaining
good grades/doing well in class and also managing to have fun and have a great
experience abroad?
Katelyn: My
advice to students who wish to travel while in college is to narrow down a list
of countries they wish to travel to and then research study abroad programs
available in those countries. The internet is of course a wonderful resource,
but just as invaluable are professors and coordinators in the International or
Study Abroad Office. Most universities have an International/Study Abroad
Office and the coordinators who work there are more than happy to talk to you
about various programs that are available and help you pick the one that is
best for you. Many schools also host Study Abroad fairs where you can talk to
representatives from different programs. Professors may also recommend certain
programs for you, which is what happened with me. If you can’t afford to go
abroad, your best bet is to apply for scholarship programs like Fulbright,
which is what I did. They are notoriously competitive and you need to have a
strong application which your professors can help you with, but of course, if
you don’t apply, you have a 100% chance of not getting in. If you do go abroad,
you’ll find that you learn just as much, if not more, outside the classroom as
you do inside it. While it’s important to keep up with your homework, your
experiences out and about in your host country are a huge part of your
education as well, so make sure not to miss out! To achieve a healthy balance
of both, you may have to cut back a little on sleep, but as long as you plan
ahead and budget your time, which are important skills no matter where in the
world you are, you should be just fine!
- Check out Katelyn's article featured here on the Rowan website:
-
You
can also check out Katelyn's travel blog from her experience here:
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