Currently in my junior year, I spent a semester of my previous year in high school at Conserve School, an environmentally-focused boarding school in northern Wisconsin. During my time there I studied a wide range of topics, including forestry, ecotourism, and Antarctic exploration, all while living alongside 60 other teenagers. With the run of the 1200 acre campus, my friends and I had lots of adventures while doing some exploration of our own. Being at Conserve was an amazing opportunity that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Anna Caldwell-Overdier. Photo by Taein Kim
In addition to science, I am also really interested in learning languages. This past summer, I participated in the National Security Language Initiative for Youth, through which I had the opportunity to travel to Seoul, Korea. There, I stayed with a host family and continued my study of Korean language at Sogang University. From my experience being immersed in Korean culture, I have learned so much about my own culture and navigating cultural barriers–skills that I hope to apply to diplomacy later in life. My first foreign language is Spanish, and I'm looking forward to being able to speak it with the Chilean teams. I haven’t been exposed to the same kind of immersion in Spanish that I have in Korean, so the prospect of travelling to a Spanish-speaking country is really exciting for me.
At Monona Grove High School, I participate in Model United Nations, a fascinating, challenging, and time-consuming activity. Model UN reflects many of my interests, and is very fun, yet very exhausting. Our school attends two conferences every year, one locally that is student-run, and a major international conference in Chicago. In the past, some of my positions have been Chair of the Security Council, Taiwan (for a simulation set in 1950), Libya in the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Ambassador to the UN for the Pakistani Cabinet of Ministers. For our next conference, I will be representing the United States in the International Court of Justice. Model UN drives me to learn in a way that most of my classes do not, and has reinforced my love for learning about and understanding people around the world throughout high school.
JASE seems like the perfect combination of my interests. In Antarctica, I will be able to do science alongside peers from Chile, and I am very excited to learn about their science projects as well as their culture. Science and diplomacy are two things that I am deeply passionate about, and JASE will allow me to explore both.