When studying abroad, these four students added to their resumes and created unforgettable memories across the globe.
Correction: An earlier version of this article contained a factual error stating that MU student Brady Chung studied abroad in Gyeongju, South Korea. The text should have read that Chung studied abroad in Seoul, South Korea.
Despite traveling to four different places, these four MU students had the chance to experience things that they couldn’t have experienced here in Missouri. Senior Cela Migan worked two internships in New York City and junior Brady Chung had the opportunity to connect with his ancestry in South Korea. Experiences abroad left all four of these individuals with a better understanding of the world and of themselves.
Cela Migan: New York City
While studying in New York City through the Missouri School of Journalism in the 2022 fall semester, senior Cela Migan created a tourist bucket list.
“I tried to do a few things over the weekends [or] whenever I had free time,” Migan said. “I got to go to The [Late Show with] Steven Colbert [and] go to the Top of the Rock [where] you get to see all of Manhattan; it’s really beautiful.”
On top of making it her goal to hit all of the city’s tourist spots, Migan worked two internships. One of her internships was with Gallery Books publishing house, the other was with NBC News.
Migan worked as a marketing intern with Gallery Books, writing emails to booksellers and scouring the internet for potential people to send books to. During her time at NBC News, Migan worked with the social media team, writing posts for Facebook and Twitter.
“I think both of the internships taught me a lot,” Migan said. “On the publishing side, I’d never worked in publishing before. It’s really exciting and cool to be able to see how they receive books from the authors, the editing process [and] things like that.”
With her NBC News internship, Migan said she learned more about news coverage, too.
“I definitely refined my news judgment,” Migan said. “It’s a lot [of] deciding what are the big news events of the day, what are we going to try and cover, what are we prioritizing, and then also being really careful about [the] language that we’re using and fact-checking everything.”
Migan is hoping to apply the skills she learned while in New York to projects at MU and in her future career.
“I think this last semester, especially since I’m doing my capstone, I’m really going to try and apply these [by paying] attention to language, voice and audience,” Migan said. “So really, trying to say, ‘We’re creating this, but for who? How are we going to be effective in delivering this product?’”
Grace Sidberry: Italy
Junior Grace Sidberry spent part of her winter break on a pig farm in Italy.
“We visited a pig farm and saw [the farmer’s] production and all of the animals that he owns,” Sidberry said. “He’s struggling kind of with similar things that we’re struggling with. [There’s a] heavy drought over there; it’s not raining as often as it used to. So now, he’s losing money instead of gaining it.”
Sidberry, a plant sciences major, traveled to Italy from Jan. 4 to Jan. 15 with the topic of global food security in mind. In addition to traveling to Rome, Tuscany and Florence, she met local farmers implementing creative ways to grow food.
“Someone we visited was growing mushrooms,” Sidberry said. “He’s using coffee grounds to do it — a circular agricultural system. Instead of chemical fertilizers, [he’s] using more natural compost to grow microgreens and mushrooms.”
By talking to the locals, Sidberry saw the different, natural ways that people are growing food across the globe. She hopes to take the information she’s learned while abroad to implement similar tactics here in the United States.
“We visited [an] organization [called] the European Federation of the Associations of Dietitians,” Sidberry said. “They do stuff like teaching people across the world how to farm and sustain themselves and their communities. [I want to] try and keep an open mind and learn — maybe teach other people what I’ve learned.”
On top of getting to spend time learning about how her major plays a role in the world, Sidberry also got to learn about herself.
“I like to think that [studying abroad] will help me with my communication skills [because] I’ve learned how to navigate in a new environment [where] my language is not primarily spoken,” Sidberry said. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to better communicate with others. I hope we can learn how to be less reliant on chemicals and figure out how to imitate nature more.”
Brady Chung: Seoul, South Korea
Brady Chung, an economics major at MU, spent his 2022 fall semester in South Korea.
One of the things he participated in while studying abroad was celebrating Chuseok — which he explains as a “Korean Thanksgiving.”
“I’ve celebrated with my family before, but this was my first actual one,” Chung said. “Usually, families get together and you make a lot of food together. Some families go to [the] graves of dead family members and give offerings and clean up the burial site.”
Through the Office of Global and National Fellowships, which recognizes Chung as a Gilman Scholar, he was able to study abroad with scholarship awards. His journey to South Korea was incredibly personal to him, and he selected this program specifically so that he would have a chance to visit his family’s ancestral home.
“I wanted to see how my life could’ve been if I was born in Korea,” Chung said. “Compared to my life in America and being here, I could see some slight cultural differences. [It] was very significant to me.”
Through his travels, Chung learned that he could count on himself when things get difficult.
“I think I’ve been more independent,” Chung said. “When you’re placed in an unknown environment, even though I knew the language, I still had to rely on myself. It taught me how to open up and be free to learn about other cultures.”
Emily Griffith: Amman, Jordan
Before traveling abroad to study in Jordan, international studies and journalism student Emily Griffith signed a language pledge, promising to speak Arabic 70% of the time she was abroad.
“The whole thing is a language immersion program,” Griffith said. “The beginning of it was very language intensive; we had four hours of Jordanian dialect class each day. We also had language partners, so every week we had to spend like three or four hours with our language partner speaking Arabic.”
Along with learning Arabic for several hours of the day, Griffith also took three elective courses while she was in Jordan. The main goal was to spend as much of the day speaking Arabic as possible to improve her language comprehension and speaking ability.
“Before we even got there, we did a language evaluation,” Griffith said. “Then, at the end, you take an OPI, which is like an official language assessment that [says] officially which language level you’re at.”
When first arriving there, Griffith got placed in the novice high level. After spending a semester in Jordan, she tested at the intermediate-high level.
Although a language-intensive program, Griffith was still granted the opportunity to explore all Jordan has to offer.
“We went to Wadi Mujib, which is [a] hike,” Griffith said. “[Our] neighbors took us on this. You were on this big hike through this huge cavern, and you had to climb up these waterfalls. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, but it was so fun. You could see the sky through the top of the cavern, and at the end, there’s this huge waterfall that you get to play around [in].”
While in Jordan, Griffith learned to play to her strengths when it comes to applying her skills in the real world.
“I feel like I learned so much,” Griffith said. “You’re taking [in] so much new information every single day. I learned if something needs to get done, I can do it. There were several times where [I] didn’t know if I could do that, but you just kind of learn.”
Edited by Savvy Sleevar | ssleevar@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Kyla Pehr and Grace Knight
