Final conclusions

Merry Late Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends making new memories and maybe even some new traditions.

The last weekish at the center consisted of touching up our final draft of our paper which was due on that Friday, and presenting to our classmates and staff on Sunday. It was such a exciting feeling to be able to finish this project you have been putting so much work and time into. You also just wanted to be done with it at the same time since it has been the last month of your life, but this was like your little baby and you wanted it to be perfect.

After submitting our paper we all went and celebrated (basically) being done with the semester by going out for some drinks and food. This was some of the last few days being able to spend time with everyone before we all split our own ways.

Sunday rolled around and many of us got “dressed” up with the nicest clothes we brought to this program… which to let you in on was basically nothing at all. We set up our common room to look like the inside of an airplane facing the projector and began to listen to the 23 students and their research projects. It was very much conference themed and we had a schedule to who was up next and had their presentation ready to go. We also were allowed 10 minutes maximum to talk and 5 minutes for questions. To see how all the different array of projects and the different ways my other classmates took them was incredible. Even though the whole day of presenting took like 6 hours, it didn’t feel that long to me since your interests were always being challenged with new information. After all of the presentations were over the 3 professors chose a student from each group to present to the town the next day. They then worked with that student to help translate their project in Spanish so that it was easily readable for the local townspeople.

The next day we all met in the library conference room and all-in-all we had about half of the room filled up with people from around the town (I’d say maybe 15ish) which is not bad for the first year of a SFS program. While each student presented their professor stood next to them to help translate what they were saying to the audience. Obviously every single thing does not translate word-for-word so at times it took a couple of extra words to convey the message correctly. Some of the questions the local people asked were amazing, and it was so cool to see them interested in changing something for the better. They asked things like “Well, how long until this can be published?” or “How is this beneficial to our town/area in the future, and why did you want to look at this research?”. It’s people like that who will change the world – one person at a time.

The last few days were pretty chill and basically just consisted of us packing up, hanging out, and writing plane letters. Each one of us had a envelope which was hung up in the hallway and anyone of us could put a letter, note, or a sticker inside of it so when we were flying home we could read sweet notes written by our friends and classmates. Such a cool idea and later on when I was reading them, a few people were able to trigger some crying and heart throbbing moments from me. Also, during this period of 2/3 days we had a sunset that was one of the most beautiful ones I have ever experienced. Around half our group gathered to watch this beauty of a painting which was colored by dark reds, bright oranges, and vibrant yellows. It was one of those moments where you are just standing there lost in time watching something so simple, yet so beautiful having some of your best buddies all around you. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

There were 3 of us that had to leave a day early and we all met in the common area to give them hugs and wave them goodbye. Lots of crying and tears were involved, and this was the first time that many of us realized that we would be leaving the following day after this magnificent semester. Another group left early that next morning before most of us even began to think of getting up. The next day at the airport after we all checked in our bags we did the same process of saying goodbye, and I am not a super big crier when it comes to goodbyes but some my closest friends sure did hit a button which made me very sad. My flight wasn’t until 5 hours after the large majority of the group, and I felt like a dad sending off all my kids and trying not to ball in front of them all.

This semester was one of the best times in my life. I grew so much in my own understanding and realized things I would have never thought about myself. SFS is an amazing program and I would definitely recommend it if you are a lover of traveling, and doing research and fieldwork outside the ‘normal’ classroom. I am going to miss all my fellow friends and classmates, but I also know I am going to see many of them again in the near future.

Never stop adventuring!

Luke