During my sophomore year, as I was getting to know my new roommate, something we connected with was our love and passion for travel. As I looked for more ways to get involved after losing a whole semester to the pandemic, she told me about Navigators. Despite having missed the application deadline I was eager to apply for the organization the following semester. For fall 2021 I applied to the Navigators mentor, and mentee program and got accepted as a mentor. During my first semester, I got paired with a girl from London. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, I was unable to meet her very many times aside from a few run-ins on campus. I was still eager to get involved so I applied again for the spring of 2022. This semester I was accepted as a mentor to a young man from Spain, Pablo. The first time I met him was during one of the Navigator events at the Midpoint Eatery. Here I met a few other of his friends who were also Spanish, their mentors and one of his friends from Cyprus.

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Throughout the semester I got to know each of these individuals very well and spent a lot of time with them. We took trips to places like Tampa and New York, and I even brought them home with me to South Florida during spring break and once the semester was over. They each taught me unique things about their cultures. For example, I learned that in Spain people typically refer to each other by their last names rather than their first names. I also learned that in Cyprus they have Christmas ships rather than trees.

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Overall, I got to create such strong relationships with these individuals. Not only did I show them and teach them about the UF and the United States, but they also taught me so much about their respective countries. Then when I studied abroad, I even had the opportunity to switch roles and become a mentee!

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