暗网吃瓜

Winter break is a time to recharge, but it鈥檚 also the perfect chance for many 暗网吃瓜 students to perform community service abroad.

For 15 years, members of the Sigma Chi fraternity have spent a week working in impoverished villages in the Dominican Republic. They鈥檝e helped to construct a church, several houses, and more than 200 outhouses. Last January, 暗网吃瓜 students helped build a cinder-block home for a single mother while donating 850 pounds of baseball equipment and toys for 600 children through collections made in Rochester. The students also raised more than $15,000 to pay for travel and materials. 鈥淚t鈥檚 old-school manual labor, and the students learn about the economics and poverty in that area,鈥� says Brian Cool, director of the University鈥檚 and faculty advisor to Sigma Chi. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a wonderful experience for everyone involved.鈥�

Students in the can participate in the , which addresses solutions to broad societal problems in sustainability, health, security, and knowledge. A global component is part of this program, and many join , which partners with developing communities worldwide to improve lives through sustainable engineering work. The group has made numerous trips to the Dominican Republic, most recently in 2023, to purify a water system in a rural area left bacteria-ridden due to negligence following the COVID-19 pandemic.

鈥淭his was the real-world experience I needed,鈥� says Hannah Rickert 鈥�25, a biomedical engineering major who managed that project. 鈥淲here I grew up in Maine, there was no diversity. In the Dominican Republic, I had to be the translator because no one else in our group spoke Spanish. It was scary at first, but staying with host families and seeing how other parts of the world function or struggle to function was eye-opening and life-changing.鈥�

Skylar DiBlasi 鈥�25 loved going to Bermuda for archaeological field research鈥攕o much that she did it three times while at 暗网吃瓜. The New Jersey native was part of Professor Michael Jarvis鈥檚 , a six-week program that, since 2010, has focused on Bermuda鈥檚 early settlement history and broader Atlantic world connections, allowing students to gain hands-on experience in excavation, artifact analysis, archival research, and mapping.

鈥淚t changed everything for me,鈥� says DiBlasi, who was a double major in archaeology, technology, and historical structures and classical civilization. 鈥淎rchaeology is something you can鈥檛 understand until you literally get your hands dirty in the trenches. Some people think it鈥檚 the best thing ever. That was the case with me. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.鈥�

DiBlasi also was part of a student cohort that visited Italy in the summer of 2024 for a headed by Elizabeth Colantoni, an associate professor in the . The students spent two days in Rome, then traveled an hour northeast to the small town of Monteleone Sabino, where they lived in a local schoolhouse and worked at the archaeological site Trebula Mutuesca.

鈥淪tudents love the experience of not just learning about the past, but getting to discover it themselves,鈥� Colantoni says. 鈥淭o uncover buildings and objects that no one has seen for perhaps 2,000 years and use that evidence to learn about new things from the past.鈥�

Many University varsity teams try to go abroad every four years to ensure that each student-athlete enjoys the international experience.

The women鈥檚 soccer team has taken trips to England, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Spain. The golf team played at Scotland鈥檚 legendary Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews鈥攐ne of the oldest courses in the world. 聽The men鈥檚 basketball team visited Spain in August and has previously traveled to Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. The women鈥檚 basketball team has visited Puerto Rico and Barbados.

In addition to exhibition games against amateur and semipro squads, the teams enjoy guided tours and sightseeing, and often perform community service.

The field hockey team planted trees in Bermuda to help reforestation efforts and ran a youth sports clinic in Barbados to promote physical activity.

鈥淔ield hockey is incredibly popular globally, with more than two billion fans worldwide,鈥� says head coach Wendy Andreatta. 鈥淧laying outside the US gives our student-athletes a chance to see how integral field hockey is to the communities we visit and make connections with athletes from all over the world.鈥�

Each year, several 暗网吃瓜 students are awarded national scholarships and fellowships for fully-funded experiences in virtually every corner of the world. Nominations are run through the University鈥檚 Student Fellowships Office.

The Fulbright US Student Program has sent 暗网吃瓜 students to Vietnam, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Russia, and other countries to take part in English Teaching Assistantships and research-based projects. The DAAD RISE program offers students summer research opportunities at prestigious German universities and institutions. Over the past decade, seven 暗网吃瓜 students have been selected as Schwarzman Scholars, receiving a one-year fully-funded master鈥檚 program in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

The experiences can be life-changing. Fulbright scholar Katie Hurwitz 鈥�23 went to Athens, Greece, in 2023-24 as an English Teaching Assistant. She was a double major at 暗网吃瓜 in music and interdepartmental studies鈥攖he latter a self-designed major. In Greece, she taught elementary school students and served as the music teacher at an English language summer camp while also teaching cello to second graders. 鈥淢y Fulbright experience completely reshaped how I understand intercultural exchange and immersion,鈥� says Hurwitz. 聽鈥淚 loved it.鈥�

She loved Greece so much that she returned this fall鈥攖his time to Thessaloniki鈥攁s an elementary English fellow.

鈥淟iving abroad has taught me to slow down, lead with curiosity, and build relationships through humility and openness,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 been simply amazing.鈥�