In the last few months of my co-op, I began to think about what I would do with the next two months left before I began classes again. In my four year, two co-op curriculum, having the summer off is a rarity that I wanted to be sure to make the most of. I also wanted it to be meaningful in some way. My journey began in the international co-op office asking about different volunteer opportunities and later turned into my applying for a language and medicine program in Cusco, Peru.

Traveling to Haiti was an incredible and eye-opening experience.  I’ve traveled internationally before, but this was my first experience with true poverty.  The generosity of the people and willingness to integrate us into the community was amazing.  Working with the students and teachers was inspiring and reminded me what I like so much about learning, and also highlighted the importance of the accessibility of good education.  I am thankful for the financial support given to me by the Northeastern Honors department that helped make this trip a reality.

“When and where is it best to buy Euros?” I asked people around me. See, at Northeastern we learn that the value of money goes way beyond just green paper. Therefore, in order to make this conference trip an even better learning experience, I had to start from there. Being surrounded by such a strong internationally diverse student body, the answer came pretty easy: years of reliable acquired expertise. Nonetheless, five hours before my flight departed to Munich, Germany, I had yet to pack my travel cases, complete my Aplia assignment, and most importantly buy that particularly worthless green paper. Just there a life-changing adventure began.

Last fall I completed my co-op at the MacArthur Foundation in the Conservation and Sustainable Development Division. During my time there, I focused on preparing the implementation of a new ten-year strategy. Historically, conservation efforts focused on severing human activity from nature to preserve ecosystems. Protected areas are no longer considered a silver bullet. As population grows and demand increases on ecosystem services, from freshwater reserves to bee’s cross-pollination, the conservation field recognizes that what is most sustainable is when people and nature work in tandem.

Prince William County, Virginia. November 6th, 2012. The polls had closed and I was sitting in a field office in the city of Manassas, obsessively refreshing the State Board of Elections website. I was watching my precincts, the ones I had been working in since June, to make sure that they turned out and voted for my candidate in one of the most highly contested Senate races in the nation.

While driving in the back of a cab from St. Paul International Airport to downtown Minneapolis, I had two thoughts in my head. The first was “How much is this ridiculous cab ride going to cost?” and the second was “I can’t believe this is the farthest West I’ve ever travelled in the United States.” However, after a weekend attending the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Student Conference, hosted this past October at the Minneapolis Convention Center, I had much more important thoughts in mind.

I am an active sexual health outreach worker in Boston, and will be abroad in Buenos Aires this coming year doing similar outreach and prevention work with HIV and AIDS. One of my biggest passions is working in LGBT health and community-building, so when a conference recently came across my radar, a national Gay Men’s Health Summit, in Washington, DC, I leapt at the thought of attending. Leafing through the list of workshops and discussions, there were endless opportunities to gain new perspectives about the work that I do and have open, frank discussions about identity and the future of the movement.

My last semester of college, I took the unconventional step of adding a fifth class to my schedule by auditing a class at MIT. Health Informatics in Resource Poor Settings lured me to relinquish my Friday mornings with an incredible speaker each week describing their various cutting edge solutions in implementation throughout the developing world.

Near the end of my first year as a college undergraduate I began to wonder about how I could spend my summer in a meaningful way. That was when I heard about the International Student Volunteer Program. ISV is a non-profit organization that sends students all over the world to make a difference in a community. I chose to participate in their Australia program, and the Honors Program graciously supported my endeavors with a $250 travel grant. Therefore, this summer I spent two weeks volunteering on a conservation project and another two weeks on an adventure tour down the east coast of Australia.

Globemed is a national organization that pairs university chapters with grass-roots organizations worldwide for the purpose of fighting poverty and raising awareness for and increasing global health equity. Globemed was nationally founded at Northwestern University in 2006, and has the unique model of partnering grassroots organization around the world directly with 50 university chapters across the United States of America. The Globemed model allows students to work hand in hand with community leaders across the globe by facilitating a mutual exchange of information and support which helps both organizations grow and prosper.