By: Amanda Moore, Nursing ’26 The sunrise outside of the airport. GRIP: Community Development in Uganda As our plane touched down at Entebbe, I opened my window shade only to be pierced by the rising sun. It was the ripe time of 6am. I had only slept for 6 hours out of my 24 hours…
By: Amaan Omer, CAS ’25 Spending time with the local children after eating dinner with their families. GRIP: Power Up Gambia, Bwiam, The Gambia A blast of hot air overwhelmed me as soon as I stepped out of the plane. It was nothing like those sunny Philadelphia days that cured seasonal depression; this was the…
By: Saanvi Agarwal, CAS ’26 A shot of the business and finance hub within Sydney’s Central Business District GRIP: Business in Sydney, Australia I didn’t realize the true value of Google Calendar until I arrived in Sydney. As a Penn student, I was aware of the “Penn Bubble.” Locust Walk’s cobblestone paths resonated with the…
By: Ruqaiyyah Lucas-Caldwell, CAS ’24 Ruqaiyyah Lucas-Caldwell at the UN World Medical Association, Ferney-Voltaire, France I experienced culture shock in my first few days here. But not in a negative way at all. It was a positive one because I was so surprised to see how diverse Geneva was. There are so many different cultures and…
By: Dushaun Thompson, CAS ’24 Dushaun in Lisbon University of Minho Law School, Portugal On the one hand, Braga has provided me the opportunity and resources to pique my academic curiosity and consider my future aspirations in greater depth. This is more or less what I expected from this internship, and it has delivered well…
By: Eesha Balar, CAS ’24 Gambia River lookout. Power Up Gambia, The Gambia It’s been a little more than a week already! Honestly, I can’t tell if it went by quickly or slowly, as I’m still trying to get adjusted to living here. I also still can’t believe I’m across the Atlantic, on a totally…
By: Wangari Mbuthia, SEAS ’25 Me at Marina Bay Engineering Research in Singapore If someone would have told me this time last year that I would be doing an engineering research program in Singapore, I wouldn’t have believed it. But rest assured here I am, two weeks in, and it has been an incredible experience.…
By: Nikola Datkova, CAS ’25 Bananas on bicycle Gashora Girls Academy of Science and Technology, Rwanda The exam starts at 8 o’clock. The early birds show up at 7.55 am, most students won’t be ready until 8.05 am, the teacher enters the room at 8.10 am—and nobody makes a big deal out of it. Not…
By: Carine Mankarious, Ain Shams University Carine is one of the EAP Correspondents writing and sharing her experience at Penn during the Spring 2023 semester. You can also follow along with Carine and our other students on the @pennabroad Instagram feed. It all started with an opportunity that I was too timid to grasp yet so keen on…
By: Brinn Gammer, College ’24 CASA Santiago: Chilean Universities Program, Chile Brinn is one of the Semester Abroad Global Correspondents writing and sharing her experience abroad during the Spring 2023 semester. Follow along with the group of correspondents on our blog and look out for their images on the @pennabroad Instagram feed. Before arriving to Santiago de Chile—and even when I was perusing…