A transformative summer with my Tico school

Looking back I don't think I knew just how important this summer would be to my personal and professional development. My summer with WorldTeach in Costa Rica was certainly a life-changing experience and placed me on the path I'm on today in international education. I was welcomed into my community with open arms by both my family and my school, and I got to experience a totally different way of life in a rural setting. All of the challenges (being thrown into a foreign language, adjusting to the isolation of a mountainous Costa Rica town, terrifying bugs big and small, first-time teaching, and so on) were very important to my development as I thought about how I wanted to live my life and what field I wanted to get into.

I thought about my family, my students, my town, and the experience for years and years after and longed to do it again - so I moved to South America to teach for two and a half years! I don't think I ever would have had the courage and ganas to do that without that first experience with WorldTeach. WT really expanded my world - not only internationally but also domestically, as I have connected with local immigrant communities in the States through ESL too. It was the perfect program for that time in my life, and an incredibly positive experience, with tons of support and cultural sensitivity. Not only that, when you're teaching you're making a direct impact on the community and you have a structured role, which is something that I really appreciated for the direction that it provided. WT is amazing!