Eliza Pesuit likes to rock the boat. And she’s taking high school juniors with her. Eliza is the 30-year-old CEO ofGlobal Glimpse, a non-profit organization that brings students together from diverse communities — from affluent Marin County to the South Bronx — to become change agents in their local communities and beyond. Global Glimpse takes students out of their comfort zone, pushes them to challenge assumptions and shows them that they are capable of more than they ever thought possible.
In marginalized communities, too many students with leadership potential get lost before the end of high school. Global Glimpse partners with public high schools in these low and mixed income neighborhoods to deliver a program that engages students, teachers, administrators and families.
But Global Glimpse isn’t just for students from marginalized communities — it’s for everyone. Through after school workshops and a three week structured group immersion experience in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic or Ecuador, high school juniors develop confidence and life-changing skills.
And this non-profit has a sustainable and scalable business model. Global Glimpse currently partners with 50 high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, and will launch their first programs in Chicago in the fall of 2015. It is the only organization in the student travel field committed to serving low-income youth on a large scale. Since it started in 2008, the organization has grown seven fold, served over 2000 students, and provided over $3 million in travel scholarships for low-income youth. In 2015 Global Glimpse expects to serve 750 students. 96% of Global Glimpse alumni go on to college in communities where the average college attendance rate is under 10%.
Following is the Global Glimpse story, in Eliza’s words.
Shaking Things Up
Today’s youth learn about the world through media: TV, YouTube, facebook, twitter, etc. They grow up with the illusion of connection to a big world, but without personal experience. Global Glimpse gives students a doorway into another world while constantly tying this experience back to their lives in the United States. When you remove high school students from everything that is familiar and settle them in a developing country for three weeks, their common assumptions are shattered. Their perspectives on poverty and privilege, on the importance of education, and most importantly, on their ability and responsibility to effect change in the world change radically. They gain the ability to see and evaluate the world and their home communities with new eyes.
For example, we may have the illusion of racial equality in the United States, but American high schools are highly segregated. Global Glimpse deliberately shakes this up. Our groups are socioeconomically, racially and ethnically diverse. We’ll put a group of students from Greenwich together with a group from the South Bronx. It’s very rare for people from such diverse backgrounds to live together for an extended period time. We immerse them in a new reality and, through daily experiences and nightly reflection sessions, support them to understand each other, to recognize and respect their differences in backgrounds and views as well as find common ground.
We believe that closing the achievement gap requires not only providing low-income youth with opportunities that will set them on a path towards success, but also providing them with experiences that allow them to operate comfortably across socioeconomic lines. It is just as important for students from more affluent backgrounds to understand the realities low income communities face in this country as interntionally. . . . .
A group of influential education organizations has stepped in to support a private prep school in its appeal against a former student, saying the case could have far-reaching negative effects on study abroad trips.
Cara Munn suffered brain damage after she contracted viral encephalitis in 2007 from a tick bite she received while on a school trip to China with the Hotchkiss School.
Last year, a Connecticut jury awarded Munn $41 million in damages, after agreeing with her family’s claims that the school had failed to take appropriate precautions and to get proper medical attention quickly enough.
The Hotchkiss School, a private boarding school in Lakeville, Conn., argued that the tick bite and the illness were so unlikely to occur that there was no way to prepare for or prevent them. Continue reading
VALDOSTA, GA – Madison Bridges, a high school student in Valdosta, GA, has been awarded a National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) scholarship for 2014-2015. Madison will study Korean in South Korea for the Summer.
The NSLI-Y program is funded by the U.S. Department of State and provides merit-based scholarships for eligible high school students to learn less commonly-taught languages in summer and academic-year overseas immersion programs. The State Department offers approximately 625 students per year the change to study Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian, or Turkish overseas through NSLI-Y.
Launched in 2006, NSLI-Y seeks to increase the number of Americans who can engage with native speakers of critical languages by providing formal instruction and informal language practice in an immersion environment. The goals of the NSLI-Y program include sparking a life-long interest in foreign languages and cultures, and developing a corps of young Americans with the skills necessary to advance international dialogue and cross-cultural opportunities in the
private, academic, and government sectors. . . . .
I don’t know if I can really call this a book review, when it’s only a five page pdf, but what the hey! 🙂 Author Tobias Fisch has graciously put together a handy little online booklet for students interested in studying in Québec/Canada.
To start with, a disclaimer: I get the feeling that the author is talking about studying in High School, because he/she discusses the opportunity to participate in Prom, Graduation, and the “big exams.” Still, I didn’t think that really detracted from the guidebook–only a short part (the section on how classes work) was relevant to what level of education you’re in. And if you are in high school, it’s all good–especially the part about the 10-day schedule!
The rest of it went over generally helpful information for all students studying abroad (how to adjust to a host family, how to avoid homesickness) and then very specific information about Québec itself starting on page 3.
Some of the things you might want to check out are the slang words used in Québecan French, how the money works, the standard tax rate (calculate it into your prices!), how to arrange phone communication, and the Unit changes. Actually pretty much all of the information from pages 3-5 are helpful. So if you are interested in studying in Canada, you might check it out!
1. Flying with family is infinitely easier than flying solo with a bunch of strangers in a multitude of ways.
Not least of which is that you can sleep on the shoulders of your family. That doesn’t quite fly with most strangers…
As most of you know, your average college student can’t survive without good old government school loans, and that means the dreaded FAFSA. That horrid form you have to fill out every year just to prove what you already know, you’re broke. 😛
For those of you studying abroad, you probably are aware that you can get federal loans to cover these classes if your school transfers them in or is in charge of the program. Usually, this means you have to study via a US college’s program, either through your own university or as a visiting student at another college. I have studied abroad several times, but only once through my own college. All my law school classes abroad have been through programs offered by other US law schools who agreed to take me in.
But did you know that the FAFSA doesn’t just cover US schools? Sometimes, your college is unwilling to transfer in credits. Or you want to take more classes than is allowed for transfer purposes. Or a program just isn’t offered through a US school in that country or area you wanted for that specialization you’ve been dying to research.
For those situations, you might want to turn to the FAFSA School Code List available here. You probably haven’t looked at this since your first semester when you had them send the forms to your college, but try taking a look at the bottom of the list. That’s right, the FAFSA program may cover a program you’re interested in at a foreign school. The list starts on page 147 of the form, and it includes numerous school in all sorts of countries. So if you’ve always been interested in studying in Australia, but no US college offers a program at that university/city, check out this list. If it’s on the list, it is covered by FAFSA and you can apply for US government school loans to cover that program of study the same as you would any US program. This is how many US students are affording to get their entire degrees abroad. Technically, you can have an entire undergraduate or graduate degree covered with school loans in these schools via the FAFSA program, the same as if you studied in the US. Or even just a summer program. It’s worth looking into! Also remember, if it isn’t on this list then FAFSA won’t cover it. So unless it’s on this list or you’re traveling there via a US college, you may have to pay out-of-pocket.
Student Ramblings 