Class of 2020 Part III

13 min readMay 25, 2020

ZAYNAB HOLLAND

Hometown: Doha, Qatar Senior Thesis Title: “Ensuring Sustainable Peacebuilding in Bosnia and Herzegovina: The Need for a Socially Reflective Approach of Peacebuilding and Transitional Justice”

Title: Zaynab’s Global Bops (globops) description: a chronologically ordered and ﬁnalized list of the soundtrack to the best years of my life, with the best people I know. every song will forever be tied to a memory, a laugh, a circle dance, or a place I experienced in these 5 semesters. if my life is half as educational, enriching, transformative, supportive, laughter-inducing, and challenging as this program, I know I’m on the right track. thank you to my global fam, you guys set the bar so high for the company you should keep. I’m so excited for the future and to see you all again and again and again! editor’s note: ﬁnd the full playlist on Spotify listed under the same title!

Spring ’18: Vienna, Budapest, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam, Berlin, Sarajevo.1. Honey by Kehlani 2. Naked by Ella Mai 3. Solo by Frank Ocean 4. Happy Without Me by Chloe x Halle 5. Love Test by The Growlers 6. The Girl is Mine by Michael Jackson 7. After the Storm by Kali Uchis (feat. Tyler, the Creator) 8. She Came in Through the Bathroom Window by The Beatles 9. no tears left to cry by Ariana Grande 10. Lemon by N.E.R.D. (feat. Rihanna) 11. Light It Up — Remix by Major Lazer

Fall ’18: ﬁji, Australia, new Zealand 1. Sweetener by Ariana Grande (full album) 2. thank u, next by Ariana Grande 3. No Brainer by DJ Khaled
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4. Evergreen by YEBBA 5. The Middle by Zedd (feat Maren Morris) 6. What I Need by Hayley Kiyoko (feat. Kehlani) 7. I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston 8. Truth Hurts by Lizzo 9. In the Summertime by Mungo Jerry 10. Reality Check by Noname
Spring ’19: hong kong, taiwan, china 1. Party by Beyonce (feat. Andre 3000) 2. Schoolin’ Life by Beyonce 3. Me, Myself and I by Beyonce 4. Shea Butter Baby (with J. Cole) 5. 7 Rings by Ariana Grande 6. Kaleidoscope Dream by Miguel 7. Morning Glory by Kehlani 8. Feels by Kehlani 9. SUMMER by The Carters 10. Tadow by Masego 11. I Wish I Missed My Ex by Mahalia 12. Ego by Beyonce 13. Forrest Gump by Frank Ocean 14. Goodie Bag by Still Woozy 15. Better Than by Lake Street Dive 16. Before I Let Go — Homecoming by Beyonce 17. Soldier by Destiny’s Child 18. Still in Love by Thirdstory 19. Saturday Nights by Khalid

Fall ’19: sarajevo, bosnia and herzegovina 1. Every Ghetto, Every City by Ms. Lauryn Hill 2. Got to Be Real by Cheryl Lynn 3. Best of My Love by The Emotions 4. SPIRIT — From Disney’s “The Lion King” by Beyonce 5. Polka Dots and Moonbeams by Wes Montgomery 6. Gonna Love Me by Teyana Taylor 7. Can We Talk by Tevin Campbell 8. Glide by Jords 9. I Got You (Always and Forever) by Chance the Rapper 10. Get Me Bodied by Beyonce 11. boyfriend (with Social House) by Ariana Grande 12. Motivation by Normani 13. Chanel by Frank Ocean 14. Almost (Sweet Music) by Hozier 15. Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder 16. Dang! By Mac Miller (feat. Anderson .Paak) 17. Body Count by Jessie Reyez (feat. Normani & Kehlani).

Spring ’20: new york city + covid 19 lockdown 1. Honey by Mariah Carey 2. Number One by John Legend (feat. Kanye West) 3. Come Thru (with Usher) by Summer Walker 4. Come Around Me by Justin Bieber 5. Get Me by Justin Bieber (feat. Kehlani) 6. Right Back by Khalid 7. Ballin’ by Roddy Ricch 8. You Make Me Wanna by Usher.

TERRA HUEY

Hometown: Clinton, Washington Senior Thesis Title: “The (Re)Building of Social Capital for People Sleeping Rough: Concepts of Home and Community in Byron Bay, Australia”

Hey familia, it’s me! If you’re reading this it’s because I went to college (yay!), I got to travel (yay!!), and I got a degree! I learned a lot about the world and I learned a lot about myself. Trying to sum up the last four years of my life into a short paragraph is pretty much impossible, so let’s just focus on one of the most essential things I am taking away from Global: how important my family and friends are. If you know me at all, you know I appreciate long and deep conversations. You know how much I value support from those I love. Whether you were friends who ate sushi with me literally every single day in Costa Rica, or someone who took the long way to class with me in China because I didn’t like the shortcut through the hospital, or someone who oﬀered a shoulder to cry on while we both were shivering under frescoes in Italy and stuﬃng our mouths with prosciutto, or someone who aﬃrmed that I chose the right rock from a crystal shop in Australia after having asked you to blindly choose from the ones I held in my hands, or a roommate who curated the perfect space so I could feel at home in New York and put up with my incessant requests for a cat, the support and love that I have felt from this little Global family has gotten me through a whole dang lot. Global has pushed me to ﬁnd my identity, to discover who I am, and to ﬁgure out how I want to present myself to the world. That’s a hard task, but I’ve come to realize that I am not me with just me. An enormous part of my identity includes my family and friends because you have all helped to shape who I have become. My identity is a beautiful collage of all the people close to my heart, and I am so proud to carry that. So this is a thank you! I wouldn’t be in the place that I am if it weren’t for you and I am so grateful for that. Thanks for all the support, all the love, and all the meme.

FIONA KLASSEN

Hometown: San Ramon, California Senior Thesis Title: “Realizing Shared Narratives Through Places for Storytelling: The Potential for Transformative Community Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina”

Four years. Three Deans. Two passports. One piece of paper that marks the end of this journey.

As I try to write this, I am wondering: what will I remember of this experience in ﬁve year’s time? What will I want to remember? When anyone asks me about the greatest skill or learning I have gained from this program, resilience is always the ﬁrst thing that comes to my mind. In Global, we learn about resilience as the ability to recover quickly from challenging situations. Starting in Costa Rica, I thought I would learn resilience through navigating culture shock each year, struggling to communicate in new languages, and learning how to do ethnographic research. What I have come to realize is that, while all of those situations pushed me out of my comfort zone, they were (for the most part) expected. Now, I know that resilience comes from grappling with the unknown. It comes from unifying as a student group in the face of programs being dropped. It comes from ﬁnding a way to carry on when the staﬀ of a program leave in the middle of the semester. Resilience grows through questioning your own identity and having to challenge everything you thought you knew about your place in the world. I have learned resilience through making mistakes. I have learned it through attempting to resolve miscommunications and deep hurts between staﬀ and my friends. Through all these experiences, though I certainly would not consider all (or any) of these situations to be positive, Global has
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led me to realize that I can persevere through any of these situations. That will forever be the most impactful lesson of my time in Global. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to create a community with my friends, teachers, and people whom I have met along this journey. To those I have disagreed with, thank you for teaching me another side of the story. To my family who have learned to love my desire to stay in motion, thank you for your support and your trust. To those who have held space for me, thank you for showing me grace. So what will I remember about Global in ﬁve year’s time? I will remember a compassionate group of folx ready to create change.

GWEN LINDBERG

Hometown: Wexford, Pennsylvania Senior Thesis Title: “Fighting Injustice or Fighting for Justice? Radical Intimacy and Narrative Transformation in Israel Palestine” & “The Radical Idea that People Can Change: Using Intergroup Contact Theory to Recontextualize Narrative Transformation in Israel Palestine”

Well. Here we are. I never thought I would end my senior year back home. But it is coming full circle, in the most literal way possible. I think of myself as a baby freshman in Costa Rica. I read Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed for the ﬁrst time, I learned what alternative education actually meant, and I realized that it was possible for me to be both heartbroken and ﬁlled with joy at the same time. The Europe Program saw a new me. I fell in love with trying new foods, I ﬁnally found the courage to say more than ﬁve words to my host mom, and I delighted in wandering around new places without goals or plans or maps. Despite the hardships I faced personally and the challenges we endured as a class, I discovered the joy in the little things, especially Susie’s cooking; the emotions from my time in Morocco and Bosnia and Herzegovina will stay with me for years to come. Living near the ocean in Byron Bay was a new experience for me, and sometimes I still feel the movement of the waves in my bones. I truly developed my critical thinking hat there, and I haven’t been able to take it oﬀ since. My time in Whanganui gave me a new perspective on family and connection, and the welcome and care I received vastly changed my understanding of hospitality. My semester in China was the hardest semester I have ever experienced. I lost my trust in community, and it felt like I hit a new rock bottom every day. But I also learned that I am capable of more things than I ever thought
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possible. I solidiﬁed my friendship with an angel that will last the rest of my life, and I learned to share my joy and my sorrow in equal measure. Each day I spent in Israel Palestine for my IRIS (International Research and Internship Semester) felt like a transformation, a dream, and a new awakening. My fellow dudarinies are some of the most special humans I have ever met, and my activism and justice-work sparked a ﬁre deep within me that will never go out. The bonds of friendship, kinship, solidarity, and heart-space that I experienced and created myself have fundamentally changed me; I now know who I want to be, and how I want to be in ﬂuid relationships with those whom I hold dear. Capstone was a time. But in the face of an unforgiving city and a global pandemic, I was able to write both a case study and a thesis. I unearthed a faith and conﬁdence in myself that I have never known or trusted before. I have discovered that I actually have future goals — and I know what I want to do to achieve them. To my family, to my friends, to my professors, to my loves. Thank you for your endless support of my unimaginable learning.

MARISSA MYERS

Hometown: Virginia Beach, Virginia

When I started Global, I didn’t really know what I wanted to with my life. Now that my time at Global is ending, I still don’t. My dreams of owning a big beautiful house in Virginia — that architect Susie designed in Costa Rica — have not changed. But I have. Global aﬃrmed for me how much I love learning languages. Speaking them can be a diﬀerent matter entirely, but the ability to communicate with people and buy strawberries around the world has really saved my life, and has been the thing that got me through the stress of piling up assignments and deadlines. Global has conﬁrmed for me that language learning is something I will continue to engage in for the rest of my life. The world seems so much smaller and more relevant, now that I’ve made connections with people from all diﬀerent parts of it. I found joy in unexpected places, in simple conversations, in eating delicious pastas in all corners of the places I’ve lived. While I can’t say I tried all the things we found in the night markets in Taiwan (Gwen, I still think you’re insane), being there and learning in so many diﬀerent ways how people interact with each other has been inspiring and unforgettable. I am more conscious than ever before how my every action matters and that it is my responsibility to avoid causing harm just because I don’t perceive it. I will always be grateful for the hard-won lessons and teachings I’ve experienced in these last four years. I am so inspired by my classmates. I have watched them grow into the people they’re going to be, and this has led me to do and be better and to practice a little bit of creativity and kindness every day. I now know that I can survive things that terrify me. That has been the most valuable thing I’ve learned in Global, and I will never forget it. My loves, this is the end. And this is all of our beginnings. I am so proud of you.

BAILEY MOHORCICH

Hometown: Missoula, Montana Senior Thesis Title: “Māori Health and Wellbeing: The Role of the Whanganui River in Whanganui, Aotearoa (New Zealand)”

Laughter, mud, broken ﬂip-ﬂops, fresh mangos, intense thirst, and “How much further??” We trekked behind a machete-wielding guide, who forged our path to the lake at the top of the mountain as we went. Our ambitious guide and (Asia-Paciﬁc Australia Director) Soenke were determined to get us to the lake, even as many of us were equally determined to… not. This was our introduction to Innovative Encounters with Nature and Knowledge during the APAC program. This hike might be the most memorable hike we had during our time in Global, and we almost always refer back to it when we are going through tough times. When I entered Global, I had no idea what to expect from the program. Experiences like that epic hike in Fiji were more common than not, and the unusual became the norm. The most unexpected part of my Global journey for me came during my time in Whanganui, New Zealand, for my IRIS (International Research and Internship) semester. Going in, I had no idea the depths of learning and knowledge that I would walk away with. Many of these learnings came from the Whanganui River and the people who are closest to it. When I spent time on the awa (river), I found myself learning about the interconnectedness of all life. As I paddled, I thought about how each drop of water has its own story, and how history and life and many drops of water all come together to form a river. I realized that rivers are always changing. Drops of water that have come together to form the river will disband, and then will join with other water droplets. Some will evaporate and be taken back up to the clouds, to be dropped oﬀ somewhere else around the world — but all of them will continue on their journey and contribute to the life of the earth.
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As I ﬁnish this Global journey, I reﬂect back on our years together as a community. We came together as strangers; some joined us along the way, others left for diﬀerent things. Some of us were there for that infamous hike in Fiji, while others who weren’t there know the story so well that they can tell it anyway. We are all connected by the experiences we have shared. We are all ﬂowing into the big open ocean, and each of us will continue on our own journey after having all been a part of the same river.

REGINA OLIVARES

Hometown: Mexico City, Mexico; Reno, Nevada Senior Thesis Title: “Oppression Does Not End There”

While I know that what I have learned and what I am learning is made apparent to me every day, I am about to graduate from four years of not living in one place for more than three months. Four years of moving around, meeting many people, studying a lot, and trying to squeeze out every last drop of this amazing opportunity that presented itself as the best route of education for me. I am going to need time to process my experience. One thing made very clear to me is that the biggest impact I encountered in this time was human. Whether my classmates, professors, people I worked with, or people who hosted me in their homes as a part of their family, the people that I met during my time with Global have had the most profound impact on me. Struggling to ﬁt four years’ worth of learning into a small page, I think Karl Marx puts into words my thoughts on my learning with LIU Global best: “Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.” Learning through this program has ultimately made me more conscious, and therefore, more free. Something that I can put into my own words is that every day I realize that the circle around me of people who support and love me is constantly growing. This is something I am very grateful for. I am grateful to the wonderful people in my class who have taught me so much, and have made me laugh the entire time. Y ahora también quiero agradecerle mucho a mi familia y a las demás personas que me apoyaron. Me hubiera
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encantado estar con todos ustedes en este día tan especial, pero yo sé que están allí hechandome porras. A mi papá, mi mamá, y mi hermano, mil gracias por todo su apoyo y amor incondicional, los quiero mucho. Finally, just to end on another inspirational quote from Marx that ties up how I am feeling about proceeding after this learning: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”