Oh The Places You Can Go!

Your eyes aren’t fooling you. These two pictures weren’t taken anywhere near Williamsburg, Virginia. Though, you would be correct in assuming (seeing the William and Mary apparel present in both pictures) that these pictures are of William and Mary students. The first picture was taken this past summer when I went on a 4-week service trip to Kenya with an organization on campus called MASA (the Maasai American Student Alliance). The second picture was taken this past January on a 2-week service trip to Belize with the group W&M Students for Belize Education (of which I am now a leader for next year’s trip!)

These pictures are just two windows into the places that current William and Mary students are venturing to in the world to serve in some capacity. In my three years now at the College, I haven’t met one person on campus who is not involved in some service-related endeavor. In my opinion (which I admit, might be a little biased…) William and Mary students are not cut from the same cloth as students at other colleges across the country…the student body here is tremendously active and really CARES about creating that change they want to see in the world.

If I hadn’t gone to William and Mary, I never would have gotten the chance to teach English to preschoolers in a Maasai village 3 hours outside of Nairobi. I wouldn’t have been able to go down to Belize every Winter Break for the past 2 years, where I have seen the same kids in a rural town grow up before my eyes as I try and help them appreciate their education. These trips forever changed the way I saw the world around me, and I know that without these experiences, I would be a completely different person than I am today.

– Shannon Beydler ‘12