Danielle Purciello '07
AUSTRALIA
From the Shore to Down Under
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| On their last dive at the Great Barrier Reef, Purciello and Richard had not seen any turtles when one glided past Danielle, leaving Richard kicking madly to get a picture. "To be scuba diving with all the turtles and the rays and coral all around you -- it was just gorgeous," Danielle says. |
Australia has a way of staying with you. Danielle Purciello '07 knows this.
"I was floating down the Susquehanna River in a kayak today," the biology major from Nutley, N.J., says, "and I was expecting to see a crocodile, or waiting for Dr. Richard to spot a snake in a tree."
Along with nine other students and two faculty members, Danielle explored the city of Sydney, the deserts of the Outback, and the rainforests of Cairns on the Focus Australia trip this summer. The group shared experiences like platypus spotting, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, playing coconut football, petting kangaroos and climbing the world-famous Sydney Harbor Bridge.
"We knew each other going into it, but we really got to know each other," Danielle says. "We were in Australia for 20 days, sitting on long flights, doing everything, learning everything together."
To prepare for the trip, the Focus Australia group took two courses, taught by Associate Professor of Psychology M.L. Klotz and Professor of Biology David Richard, who have been running the program for 10 years. These classes prepared the students well, according to Danielle, but it was even more valuable to have the faculty with them in Australia to share their experience and expertise.
Danielle was most profoundly impacted by her experience at Uluru, the famous red rock formation in the Outback that is sacred to Australia's Aborigines. There, the Focus group was led on a tour by an Aborigine who spoke in his native language about his way of life.
"Just listening to their culture, going into it not knowing much about it, hearing about it from the people who've lived it -- it was just really impressive," Danielle says.
The last night in Australia, the 11 travelers stayed up all night on the esplanade by the beach, reflecting on their trip despite a 4 a.m. wake up call. Now back at school, the students share anecdotes, their faces lighting up with memories. Danielle reminisces, "I needed to go and experience something completely different from home, from the Shore, from Selinsgrove." Now that she has, she says, "I feel like I need to go to a million and one other places."
-- E.M.
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Carol Scherb ’70 Ray – AUSTRALIA
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| Carol Scherb '70 Ray during a return visit to Australia in 1993. |
My first experience living abroad was in 1965 when I was only 16. I was awarded an AFS Exchange Student scholarship for a year in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Imagine my parents' shock when they learned I was actually chosen. I flew, for the first time ever, alone, to California and joined other teens to fly, via Hawaii, Fiji and Sydney, to our new homes. My host family was a wonderful match. Forty years later, I am still in constant contact with them, have returned three times and hosted several of them here, plus friends, and relatives. In fact, two of my "sisters' " children have lived with our family for extended periods.
I wore a uniform, did without makeup and studied harder than I had in my life during my year as an Australian high school student. I feel I learned the fundamentals of actual study, rather than just the American system of "doing homework," which prepared me wonderfully for my time at Susquehanna. The Australian people are warm and fun loving, caustic in their wit and amazingly cultured (opera is VERY popular!). I had to defend the U.S. position in the Vietnam War, which was difficult for an uninformed teenager. Appreciation for Australian poets like Banjo Paterson and for Aussie music and food (yes, I LIKE Vegemite!) are only a few of the ways my mind was expanded by living in another country.
In 1994, my husband, Bob ('69) was transferred to London, England for two years, so we moved to the St. John's Wood section. For an English teacher, being in the land of Dickens, Shakespeare and Milton was a joy. I was a member of the Globe Theatre Restoration as it was being built. I taught English as a Second Language to adults, ages 18-80, from every corner of the world, in an ancient Baptist church, just across from the famous Abby Road music recording studio.
Living abroad helps each individual see America and Americans through the eyes of world citizens. We appear litigation-mad and very affluent and possession-obsessed. It is vital to share our real personalities and goals with people around the world. Studying or living overseas is paramount in our global world.
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| Held and Kozlowski stand on an interior catwalk in front of the NASA Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea. |
Brittany Held ’05
Richard Kozlowski ’75, professor of physics – HAWAII
You wouldn’t normally associate astronomy with Hawaii. But it was on the 13,796-foot summit of the mountain Mauna Kea that Kozlowski and Held conducted research in April 2005, using a mid-infrared spectrometer to determine which minerals make up Mercury’s surface. The world’s largest observatories for optical, infrared, and sub-millimeter astronomy are situated on Mauna Kea because of its high altitude, which minimizes the amount of atmosphere the instrument has to see through. Held is now a graduate student in chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University.
— E.M.
William Barnes '83 – NEW ZEALAND
My family and I have been blessed to be exposed to a number of international experiences. My wife (Melissa Miller '83 Barnes) and I first attended Susquehanna at Oxford in 1983. That alone provides a lifetime full of memories as we recount our time with [Associate Professor of Business] Bussard and Dr. Bradshaw. Though Melissa was an exchange student in Istanbul, Turkey in high school, this was my first time abroad. For both of us, this developed a lifelong appetite.
Melissa was a student teacher in Liverpool, England in 1985. Pursuing my job with a Canadian packaging company, we moved to Nova Scotia in 1991 and on to Montreal in 1995. We had a child born in each province. My career as director of international sales and executive vice president has taken me throughout Europe, Ukraine, Scandinavia, India, China, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In fact, during a trip to New Zealand in the early 90s, I had a beer or two with Bryan Shafer '85, who was living in the country at the time.
This has allowed me to participate in a family's preparations for Yom Kippur in an Australian home; enjoy a diverse home cooked meal in India, only to suffer food poisoning from a commercially-made candy (never eat the candy in India!), stay in a lake home on the lip of an inactive volcano in New Zealand, and walk a section of the Great Wall of China in a quiet falling snow.
By taking our four children to the U.K. in 2004, we opened up a new world to them. Our oldest daughter found a direction in her life which has resulted in an exciting personal growth. For the Barnes family, the world had brought endless ways to broaden our perspective and extend our imagination. Perhaps most of all, these experiences away from home help us realize what a remarkable country we live in. Not perfect, but outstanding.
Ryan Szuch '00 – AUSTRALIA
In 2000, Szuch received a Fulbright Graduate Scholar Grant, giving him a free trip to Australia, where he earned a one-year graduate degree in natural resources. He chose to study there because he was fascinated by the continent's unique plants and wildlife.
— E.M.
Michelle Rosenberg '01 Foster – AUSTRALIA
It all started when I was in my senior year at Susquehanna. A lot of my friends were going to study abroad and I decided it would be a good time for me to study abroad also. I always wanted to go to Australia, despite my parents wanting me to go to Europe because it was closer. I talked them into letting me go to Australia by saying it was a once in a lifetime experience and that I would never get to go to Australia again. I fell in love with Australia and especially Townsville, where I currently live. After graduation I was back to Australia to meet up again with all of the friends I had made. It was on this trip that I met my husband, Jason Foster. I am currently in the last phase of getting my Australia residency. I guess five years later, and now that my parents have been here twice, I realize how small the world really is.
