Life After Magellan

Being Home and Being Reflective

   Throughout my entire trip, I kept remembering a particular piece of advice President Tori Haring-Smith gave us during our departing Magellan meeting. It was simply to not to forget that you will be in a new place, by yourself, and the Magellan project is just as much about finding your own way, solving the inevitable problems that will appear throughout the project, and growing as a person, as it is about conducting the research you set out to examine. That advice stuck with me as I made my first trip overseas, the very first member of my family to go to a foreign country. While some might view the lack of my family’s experience abroad as a detriment, since they were unable to give me any advice about airports or foreign countries in general, whereas I saw it as a great opportunity to explore a world my parents knew nothing of and bring them back glimpses of life outside the ever consuming bubble of the United States.

            The last flight I went on was a two hour affair from Pittsburgh to Orlando when I was nine

About Me.

I apologize, this probably should have been one of the first entries, not the second to last. Without any more delay, my name is Jake Harrison a full-time student at Washington & Jefferson College, possible accounting and history double major (still a little unsure whether or not to still pursue my passion for history), and a very lucky and grateful recipient of the Magellan Project. Until this trip I, nor any member of my family has ever left the United States, and because of that I felt especially proud, and a little nervous, knowing that I had ventured further than any member of my family had, and that I would gain a perspective into life outside the US my family could only wonder. Unfortunately, the unknown causes my parents significant anxiety so my compromise was to take the minimum amount of time for my Magellan Project which is three weeks. Even still, in those three weeks I feel as if I have grown immeasurably as a person aware of the world outside our borders, and the confidence I have attained by doing all of this alone from the travel plans and tickets, to the gates of the airport to the first taxi to my hostel, to learning my way around Sliema and Valletta, has created a person who is no longer fearful of leaving the US, no longer fearful of getting lost home or abroad, and finally a person who is no longer fearful of traveling and exploring his passions.