Share your summer experiences and send us your stories.

by Becky Whitten '11

I returned yesterday from a week at Lake Champion, a Young Life camp in New York where I was volunteering with the support of Davidson's Staley Grant as a child caregiver during a week of camp for teenage mothers.

The camp was part of YoungLives, a Christian ministry to pregnant and parenting teen girls. My camp was the largest in YoungLives history with about 200 moms, their YoungLives mentors from home, over 100 childcare workers, and 170 babies! In Young Life you often hear people talk about organized chaos, but seeing camp function with 170 babies took "organized" chaos to a whole new level. We laughed during the week about the verse in 2 Corinthians that says, "If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God."

Continue reading "Seeing The Lord in Babies' Eyes" »

by Alex Su '11

Despite the fact that I had visited China in a foreign language exchange trip two years ago, I never got used to the long plane ride. After many in-flight movies, two breakfasts, a lunch, and 24 hours later, "Ni hao" (meaning "hello") was the first word I heard once I reached Taiwan this summer. I knew that word ever since I was little. For the first time however, I could say it to everyone I met.

Continue reading ""Ni Hao" (你好) Taiwan" »

Haas (center in black shirt) and fellow interns get a bird's eye view of Washington from the peak of the Capitol dome while accompanying Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski (in front and to Haas's right, wearing white)

by Lyndsey Haas '12

I decided to kick off my post-high school life by working as an intern in the U.S. Capitol for one of my (Alaska's) senators. In the office, I helped to write the "senator's opinion statement" on a portion of her web page, gave tours of the capitol to visiting Alaskans, and ran errands around capitol hill (i.e. got lost in the maze of tunnels and corridors that compose "The Hill").

Continue reading "Travel Experiences in Our Nation's Capital" »

by Brian Aoyama '09

Greetings from China! I'm writing from Fudan University in Shanghai, where thanks to the aid of Dean Rusk, Abernethy, and Belk summer grants, I've spent the last seven weeks researching civil society, public discourse, and debate in contemporary China.

Continue reading "Research in China Requires Creativity" »

by Emily Powell '09 (in front, in the green shirt, with co-workers)

This has been a crazy, unpredictable, and wonderful summer. When I visited my home in central Indiana the weekend before final exams in May, my summer plans still were unformed. However, within ten days, I had discovered, applied for and accepted a paid internship at a start-up automotive company in Anderson, Indiana. My job: to keep environmental sustainability in the forefront of my co-workers' minds, even as they travel the world to build their company.

Continue reading "A Summer of Learning in Business and Brotherhood " »

by Katie Morris '10

I am writing from Nyahuka, a small town in Bundibugyo district, Uganda (the Westernmost area, fairly isolated from the rest of Uganda due to the Rwenzori mountians). I have spent the past 8 weeks here on a community service grant teaching HIV/AIDS prevention in local primary schools and trying to learn to relate to a culture so completely different from anything I know.

Continue reading "Ollaiyo! (Good Morning in Lubwisi)" »

by Kyle W. Konrad '09

With the help of a Dean Rusk grant, an auxiliary Bonner Fund, and a gamble as to whether or not one of Bush's stimulus packages would wind up on my door step, I traveled to South America to study the way student movements affected democracy by use of riots, petitions, strikes, and general chaos. I arrived in Bolivia the end of May to begin meeting with the source of my Bolivia research, Ramiro Orias, whose association with La Red Participación y Justicia and other NGO's, has opened more doors to my life than I could have ever begun to imagine.

Continue reading "Excuse me, did you say 60 hours in a bus?" »

Laura Fontaine '09 (far left) and her theatre class of 7th and 8th grade students.

by Laura Fontaine '09

We are the young people who make a difference." Every morning at Breakthrough Atlanta (BTA) begins with all 30 teachers and 120 students on the plaza affirming our commitment to becoming our best selves and striving to make a difference.

Continue reading "We Are Breakthrough Atlanta" »

Katy (left) and her cousin, Kea McKibben.

by Katy Sims

My name is Katy Sims, and I'm writing to you from the 6th floor of the UNC-CH hospital. For those of you unfamiliar with the place, 6-East is the cancer floor. For the past nine months, I've been receiving treatment for bone cancer.

Continue reading "A Summer for Healing" »

(A few of the boys from the orphanage dressed in their school uniforms.)

by Utsha Khatri '09

Namaste! My name is Utsha Khatri. I am a rising senior. I am spending my summer in Nepal. My parents moved from Nepal to the US a long time ago. Though I was born and raised in the US for most of my life, I have also considered Nepal my second home. I lived in Nepal for a few years as a young child. I also spent a couple summers in Nepal with my mother and younger sister during grade school. This summer, I am returning after 8 years.

Continue reading "A (Second) Homecoming" »