What inspired you to go abroad?
I knew that Alaska was a place I'd wanted to visit—and visit meaningfully. I saw this opportunity, and it seemed like it was the perfect time and place to do it.
I wanted to take time off after graduating to figure out my life goals. I was burnt out from school and seeking a life-changing experience—all of these things I achieved.
Setting up camp at McBride
Why did you choose Tidelines Institute?
I was interested in getting a substantial outdoors experience, a close-knit community, and an intellectually thriving curriculum.
I knew I wanted it to be in a remote place, but I didn't want to leave the country, which led me to Alaska. I had been there before, but I'd heard that Southeast was a beauty of its own, and I wanted to experience the national park.
What was your favorite part about Alaska?
Gustavus is a small town with rural life in a beautiful place unmarred by the ugliness of civilization.
The Inian Islands are even more rugged, and they truly serve as a last frontier left in the US. Southeast is about as different from Interior Alaska as California is from Washington, so even if you've been to Alaska before, Southeast is a whole new experience: it's a temperate rainforest, so the weather is not as extreme, and the environment is most similar to the Pacific Northwest.
Aurora Borealis
What made your experience abroad extraordinary?
The sheer amount of out-of-body experiences: with wildlife, with the landscape, with like-minded people.
It feels like you're transcending, and your pores are cleansing, and all this happens on any given Tuesday. It puts you in a reflective mood—a creative and enlightening one. It's hard to describe, but you might just have to try it to understand.
How did local staff support you throughout your program?
Staff wear many hats: from teachers to faculty to program directors, to campus managers, kooks, gardeners, and on top of all that, people to look up to and confide in.
Many of the staff became personal idols and mentors, people who know you best, and at the very least, someone to write the most personalized and sincere recommendation letter.
What's one thing you wish you would have done differently during your time abroad?
I wish I'd spent more time out in the backcountry; the pristine protected lands are just a short walk/drive outside of campus. Being in Alaska means no need for a permit; just hitch a tent, and enjoy.
Being at the gateway of Glacier Bay National Park means that you get picturesque sunsets and rosy dusks, with oceans teeming with life and skies loud with bird cries.
Describe what a typical day in your life abroad looked like.
Wake up around 8, have breakfast with the community and your teachers, class from 9-12 with your cohort, lunch with the community, labor projects from 1-3, downtime/homework until dinner at 6, and unwind until nighttime.
On weekends, you can venture into town and participate in town festivities, or simply unwind by reading a book by the fireplace and cooking meals with friends.
Up on top of the Ridge
What did you enjoy doing during your free time abroad?
I loved going into town, stopping by the community center for a dancing event, going to the thrift store for some unique and cheap finds, biking down to the beach for views of the Fairweather Mountain range, having a fireside bonfire chat at night, and visiting the neighbors and hearing about their life stories.
What type of accommodation did you have? What did you like best about it?
I stayed in the student housing cabin, which was a very Alaska log cabin—an experience I'd always craved to try for myself.
I loved lighting the wood stove for cold nights and hearing the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof in early mornings. I loved the bunk bed format, which allowed me to be close to my cohort.
What is one thing every future participant should know about your program before their program begins?
They should know that it is a unique opportunity to shatter your worldview, embrace the smaller things in life, live in a slow and fulfilling way, and that this experience will change your life for the better.
It's important to know that this program is what you make of it, and that you will feel like the main character of your own journey and be able to set your own limits to what you can accomplish.
Drinking Glacier Water
Would you recommend The Glacier Bay Semester in Civic & Environmental Leadership? Why?
I would recommend this program to anyone who shows interest after hearing about the criteria, but particularly for people who feel like their life is on a predetermined path that they need a side quest from.
This is the single best decision I could make for my personal development after graduating from college, and so many others who miss out on it will never get the time/space to be young and free and do something like this, which they will greatly regret later in life.
What do you feel the biggest benefit of traveling abroad is?
For me, it was the opportunity to grow as an individual.
To learn what my own conflict style is and how to resolve that, to learn how to live with others and be less selfish, to learn how to grow something from farm to table, and to appreciate the things you have to live without in a place as remote as this.
Brown bear (hump) walking on beach
Now that you're home, how has your time abroad impacted your life?
I am much more thoughtful about how I choose to spend my time: where I want to work, the types of people I want to surround myself with, what my ideal future looks like, and where I want to live.
Every new experience I have is being compared to and mapped onto my experience in Alaska. I'm constantly reminded of how it transformed me as a person in fundamental ways.
What does meaningful travel mean to you?
It's about getting to know a place—to really know it—and the people and animals who live there, the landscape, and the names of the plants. That type of familiarity with place is lost on us as modern humans; we don't know even the most basic things about the places we come from.
But through travel, through seeing other ways of living and contrasting them to your own, you can really gain an appreciation for the place you come from.
