I'm on a bus right now in Mexico. Now, various questions are probably running through your head right now. Why am I in Mexico? How? What exactly am I doing here? Why am I on a bus?
I'm on a trip with my school's communication program. We are at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a conference put on by the United Nations to discuss the state of the Internet. People from all over world come to one corner of the world once a year for IGF, and this year, it's in Guadalajara, Mexico.
When I first told people I would be in Mexico for a week, they couldn't believe it. I got invited to go on the trip over the summer, and took a semester-long course to prepare. If I'm being honest, initially I was honored and excited for the trip, but as the semester went on, this feeling dulled down. Now, this sounds like I'm extremely ungrateful for this opportunity, and I am not trying to come off like that at all. The reason, though, for the excitement dulling down was, I think, the business of the semester. The trip itself was simply just this idea in my head that was something that was going to happen far into the future, not in a few weeks. I was preoccupied with work all semester, and incredibly busy. Therefore, I couldn't think about the anticipation of the trip nonstop like I'd do for a vacation. But an even greater reason for my feelings dying down may sound privileged: trips like these, trips to parts of the U.S. and around the world, are not expected, but instead, common at Elon.
I am beyond fortunate to attend a university that makes engaged learning a chief goal of every student's college experience. And a trip to Mexico interviewing and documenting top Internet and government officials is certainly tops the list of engaged learning.
So, when I was debating about whether or not to go on this trip because it's the week before finals, a few people urged me to look at the engaged learning angle: I could be sitting in a classroom, like I've been doing all semester, prepping for finals this week. Or, I could be in Mexico interviewing foreign dignitaries, and learning so much more than simply how to perfect an interview and some new Spanish words. Which one sounds better to you?
In case you're wondering, the excitement and surreal aspect of my university taking me on trip to Mexico surfaced again when the plane touched down in Guadalajara. A few of us looked at each other and said, "we're in Mexico." It's such a simple, obvious statement, but we repeated it to each other with this kind of stunned tone multiple times throughout the whole trip. Why? Because what other university offers their students a trip to document an international forum, and furthermore, encourages it?
