Honors Welcome Week kicked off on Thursday September 2nd. First Year Honors students were treated to an ice cream social on the green of International Village – their new home! Over 60 upper-class honors students joined in to welcome them to Northeastern.

As a student enrolled in “Enhancing Honors” in the fall of 2009, I became acquainted not only with the many opportunities of the Honors program at Northeastern, but also with the city of Boston, its neighborhoods, and the vital history that surrounds us on every street corner. One of the most interesting reading assignments of the semester was The Hardest Working Man by James Sullivan, a book about the great rock and roll icon, James Brown, and how he “saved” Boston. Brown was scheduled to perform at the Boston Garden on the night after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. While many other cities around the country erupted in riots, Boston remained relatively calm because of the way Brown handled this highly charged situation.

We hit the ground running. The lot of us being strangers in a strange land, we meshed quickly and were soon exchanging directions, Italian phrases, Euros, and umbrellas. It had only been a few short hours after we had landed in the Eternal City and we were already navigating our way through the epic ruins of the Roman Forum and then through the labyrinthine streets of the city itself.

Being surrounded by the film industry—writers, actors, directors, celebrities, nobodies, critics—is a difficult feat in Boston. As much as I love attending Northeastern, there are moments in pursuing my Cinema Studies degree that make me want to teleport to New York or Los Angeles. Unfortunately, teleportation isn’t invented yet, but (using existing technology and resources) I was able to engage with the independent film industry anyway.

With the generous support of the Northeastern University Honors Program and its Honors Travel Grant, I was able to represent our university’s Pre-Medical chapter at the 60th Annual American Medical Student Association (AMSA) National Convention. The convention was held at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California from Thursday, March 11th through Sunday, March 14th. Accompanied by Megan Fox, another NUAMSA e-board member, I was provided with the valuable opportunity to network with peers and mentors from across the country.

I was given the opportunity to participate in the National Collegiate Honors Council’s Partners in the Parks Program the week of May 15th. University of North Carolina Wilmington hosted the program in cooperation with Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Arriving first at the Wright memorial, I was amazed at what these two brothers were able to accomplish in an area that was so isolated at the time. Accompanied by a fellow engineer who I had recently made acquaintance with, I was given an Aeronautical Engineer’s perspective on the accomplishments of the world’s first aviators.

When I received my Honors Travel grant, I hadn’t anticipated that I would see so much of America. I began planning a trip to an organic farm near Portland, OR. I found a farm through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), an organization that allows one to exchange labor for food, accommodations, and education in organic farming. The farm matched my requirements: has a clever name (The Humor Farm), allows for a short stay, and is in a distant location.

This summer, I lived and completed my Coop at the Little Field Home Orphanage in Chigamba Village, Malawi. It was located on a dirt road in a very rural area of Malawi. The orphanage consists of a library/guest building (where I lived), a boy’s dorm, a girl’s dorm, and a kitchen hut. When you hike a nearby hill these buildings stuck out like a sore thumb because all the other houses were clay brick huts with thatch roofs.

Today marks the official halfway-point of my brief tenure here in Kazan for the Critical Language Program I was awarded last spring just before graduation. Naturally, I’d prefer to send a postcard, but I have yet to make it an open post-office during working hours – although I’ve been trying almost daily! Of course, there’s a small branch office just a block away from where I’m staying, but in typical Russian fashion its been closed for renovation… indefinitely. Kazan, like other capital cities in Russia, is in a perpetual state of transition. There’s always something being built, blown up, or made anew. Needless to say, I’ve learned to love the sound of pile-drivers.

This fall Professor Carey Noland and Professor Rifat Sipahi will be living in International Village as the faculty in residence.