Global Learners: Sarah Cavar ’20
“Part of learning maturely is coming up with your own ideas, stepping out of your comfort zone and engaging with people who are different from you.”
Global education experience at Mount Holyoke College: Study abroad, research abroad, interaction with international students outside the classroom
Who is your global hero? Who do you admire for courage, activism, achievements and passion? Lydia X. Z. Brown of the Autistic Hoya website has long inspired me with their commitment to justice at the intersection of disability, race, sexuality and gender. They balance political action with popular and academic writing in a way I want to emulate as an academic and as a person. It’s encouraging to see a fellow non-binary, queer, autistic person find their place in public and academic life.
What instance or insight has stayed with you from your global learning experiences? After hearing a lecture about a woman who advocated against deportations of refugees in the Netherlands, about half the class stayed after with one of the refugee-activists and made signs and collected resources for the group, which would be demonstrating against deportations later that week. It was great to go directly from an academic/educational environment to actually taking material action.
What advice do you have for students studying and interning in a culture other than their own? Embrace open-ended prompts and research questions as well as potentially uncomfortable situations. Be creative and don’t expect your advisors and professors to do the thinking for you –– part of learning maturely is coming up with your own ideas of what to explore, stepping out of your comfort zone and engaging with people who are different from you.