ANTHONY BUCHFUHRER

How would you describe your EP to someone who has never heard of it before?

Global Glimpse is a summer travel program that connects students of all backgrounds with the opportunity to travel to a developing country for two weeks. You will have the opportunity to travel to a range of Latin-American countries including: the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and possibly Nicaragua. From your acceptance, the program has two stages. The first stage starts in late January with Pre-Trip Workshops and the second is your Summer Travel Experience.

Pre-Trip Workshops are monthly workshops, typically 2 hours long, that prepare students for their trip in the Summer. As a glimpser, you will participate in a variety of activities and discussions throughout these workshops to develop yourself as a leader and gain a better understanding of your experience during travel. Some topics may include Building Global Perspective, Valuing Cultural Competency, Sustainable Service, and many others.

Throughout the two weeks, you live with your delegation which will consist of no more than 20 glimpsers, 2 Global Glimpse Leaders (GGLs) from the United States, and 2 Program Coordinators (PCs) from the country which you’re traveling to. While abroad, your group will explore history, culture, politics, poverty, education, development, and business in the developing country which you’re in.

One major component of Global Glimpse trips is being the Leader of the Day (Líder del Día). Each day a student leader is responsible for organizing and leading the day with support from GGLs and PCs. You will be able to sign-up for your day at the beginning of the trip and most days will include two leaders of the day. Another major component of your trip will be the Community Action Project which allows students to work with a local organization that Program Coordinators have previously researched to initiate a community action project. These projects are hands-on learning opportunities for glimpsers to support local community development initiatives. This could look like helping to supply a community with clean drinking water, helping to build a school, or rehabilitating a park to bring the community together.

What is a typical day like during your EP?

Typically, the day starts at 7am when the Leaders of the Day wake everyone up to get ready for the day. Leaders of the Day will wake up 30 minutes before the group so that they can wake up everyone else on time. Breakfast is always an hour after wake-up at 8am and at 9am would really start to begin our day. Before every field trip activity, there would be a Program Seminar which basically just provides context about the organization or concept you’re about to learn about. And this happens right after breakfast. After the Program Seminar, we all board the bus to go to our first activity. Once we get there, usually we would do a quick ice breaker and then get on to the activity. After our morning activity would come a delicious lunch before we continue the afternoon. After lunch we would proceed on with our afternoon activity which would take us to about 4pm. Once we arrived back at our accommodation we would move right into self-reflection before we had free-time until dinner. During free time we could do a variety of things from taking a nap, going to the basketball court, or even going to the local grocery store for some yummy snacks. Of course after free time was dinner. Following dinner, we had our Nightly Meeting where we reviewed over the day, shared gratitude for one another, and passed the torch to the next Leaders of the Day. From then until lights out at 10:30pm, we could do whatever we wanted in the accommodation. Most nights, we would end up chatting on the accommodation balcony until we were forced to go to bed for the next day.

What was the biggest challenge of your EP?

Personally, the biggest challenge of being a Global Glimpser was really during the first 2-3 days of the trip. It was really a struggle to be a part of the group and actually be involved at the beginning because a lot of students participate in Global Glimpse with their schools so for the most part, they come in with knowing 2-3 people already. It’s really important to sort of become comfortable as soon as possible once you get in-country so that you can begin building bonds with different people. Once you build those relationships, the trip really begins to speed up and be more enjoyable.

What was the biggest reward of your EP?

The biggest reward of my Global Glimpse trip would have to be the people I met on the trip. If you think about it, we were eating, sleeping, and working together for two weeks so the relationships which you build have the potential to last for a very long time even after your trip. Since the end of our trip, the delegation has already had one reunion and we all talk almost every day. The trip is really what you make of it so it’s important to build bonds with people who you seem comfortable with but also push yourself to build a relationship with people who push you out of your comfort zone.

What do you wish you had known before you went on your EP?

I wish that I knew how fortunate and privileged I really am. A lot of the time with friends, I would jokingly say I’m poor, but now I can’t really say that. On my trip, we went to communities that barely had clean drinking water and even a dump site, where the people there lived in the nearby trees and scavenged the dump site for food. I think it really changed my perspective on life because I now understand how fortunate I am to have a home with food and water which I used to take for granted.

What advice do you have for future SEO scholars who are considering your EP?

I would definitely say put yourself out there. The first couple of days will be the hardest because you’re trying to make friends and be a part of a group of 20 people. But try not to stress it, just be yourself and make the most of the moment. With time, friendships will come.

How would you describe your EP to someone who has never heard of it before?

I got to learn about the community and culture while staying with 20 other students like myself in a hostel. We did a lot of hands-on activities everyday from dance class to meet & greets with locals.

What is a typical day like during your EP?

We wake up, have breakfast, and go over the day’s itinerary before traveling to the destination and starting everything off. We usually don’t go back to our rooms till 7 to prepare for dinner, nightly meetings to review our day, and then retire to our bedroom.

What was the biggest challenge of your EP?

Localizing at the start was difficult because it felt like everyone knew each other or had already created their friend group making it difficult to put my foot through the door.

What was the biggest reward of your EP?

Coming out with 20 new friends was the best part. You never think at the start that you’ll grow close with everyone, but in the end you do because you’ve seen and done things together that really create that bond.

What do you wish you had known before you went on your EP?

I wish I would’ve known more about the food for the region I was going to because there were a lot of moments where I simply couldn’t have the food and the alternative wasn’t the best. I definitely would’ve brought more quick snacks like granola bars to help me throughout the day.

What advice do you have for future SEO scholars who are considering your EP?

I would say to keep an open mind and speak your mind. If something feels wrong or you simply wish to share your opinions this is the perfect time to share them or ask for anything. Never stay quiet or passive. As for an open mind, the trip is unlike any I've been on. It can be very difficult sometimes considering that it’s not a vacation, but it gets better as time goes on.

KEMERIA BARNETT

How would you describe your EP to someone who has never heard of it before?

Global Glimpse was truly a learning and humbling experience. Interacting with people with a language barrier, developing social and leadership skills, meeting and bonding with new people was such a necessary push for me that I genuinely enjoyed. We focused primarily on community- in this we spent days with the community, played basketball, volleyball and other traditional games with locals and ultimately fixed up a park to push for unity between the Haitians and Dominicans.

What is a typical day like during your EP?

A typical day in the Global Glimpse program we would be woken up by the leader of the day, have breakfast, have a mental warm up prior to our activity, go to our activity, have lunch then we would have another mental warmup for that activity, go to that activity and then come back to our accommodations and have free time about 1-3 hours, then have a self reflection, dinner, nightly meeting and finally lights out by 10:30

What was the biggest challenge of your EP?

Personally, I will stay to myself unless someone invites me to their conversation. This was a challenge for me because the group dynamic was very open and people would invite themselves into others' conversations so for a small period of time I was introverted until people spoke to me but I caught the gist and became more open with myself and the group.

What was the biggest reward of your EP?

The biggest reward of Global Glimpse was creating friendships and becoming humbled by what I saw over the course of 12 days.

What do you wish you had known before you went on your EP?

I wish I knew how to speak fluent Spanish because not being able to connect more with the locals because of the language barrier was frustrating.

What advice do you have for future SEO scholars who are considering your EP?

• Go with an open mind

• You can be whoever you want

• Self advocate