Growing up, I never thought I would get the chance to travel aboard. Mainly due to my parents being the protective types. They weren’t even keen on me going to the University of Louisville because they believed an hour away was too far from home. Despite this, I chose UofL. I knew it would offer me opportunities that no other university could provide. So when I learned the International Service Learning Program (ISLP), a program created for UofL students to travel aboard and provide services, I immediately applied to go to Croatia. I saw this as my chance to finally expand my horizons.

When I landed in Croatia, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. My professor Steve Sohn, a ISLP veteran, did tell me and my peers what to expect in Croatia. One of them being how Croatia is smoking country. From adults to teenagers, smoking cigarettes are practically allowed anywhere at any time. This was difficult for me to imagine until we arrived in the first city called Sisak. It was just as my professor said.

As someone who grew up in a nation where smoking is prohibited in many places and has an age restriction, witnessing such a cultural difference definitely threw me for a loop. However, it didn’t offend me. The point of ISLP is to learn about another culture, and smoking is a part of Croatia’s society. Seeing such a difference helped me better understand what it’s like to live in Croatia.

Along with learning about cultural differences, another part of ISLP is to provide services. My group and I were tasked with developing educational activities to teach to Croatian high school students. At first, I was fearful that it would be difficult for us to connect with the Croatian students. We grew up with different cultural backgrounds. I was scared such a boundary would prevent us from getting along. But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Croatian students completely opened up to us. They asked us about our culture, and they were excited to answer our questions, too. Some of the students even invited us out to explore the town, allowing us to get to know them better.�� By our last day of teaching, I had become so close with my students that I got emotional when we said our goodbyes. Luckily, we became friends on social media, so the goodbye wasn’t final.

After our teaching days, my group and I left Sisak to explore the other cities of Croatia including Zadar, Zaton, Nin and Zagreb. Every place we visited was beautiful, but it was my friends who made the experiences unforgettable. It’s amazing to me how I didn’t know anyone at the start of this program, and now some of my favorite moments are goofing around with these wonderful people.

ISLP not only introduced me to another country’s culture, but it also allowed me to form friendships with individuals whom I may have never met on UofL’s big campus.��

At three months old, Bonham was diagnosed with CF, a genetic, chronic terminal disease that affects her lungs, digestive system, and reproductive system. It will most likely kill her before she is 40, but Bonham doesn’t let CF control her life.

“When I look at it, everyone is going to pass away at some point so why would you waste it?” Bonham asks.��

Bonham is taking up to 18 hours of classes per semester and is studying to become a lawyer in medical malpractice. Each day, she carries a vibrating vest along with her books. She must put on the vest for 20 minutes to two hours twice a day to loosen the buildup of fluid in her lungs and allow her to breathe. Bonham doesn’t ask for anyone’s sympathy, but she does inspire everyone around her.

“She really does, I think, inspire everybody … She has Cystic Fibrosis and she’s not letting that limit her studies,” said Biology Professor Mark Running.

Check out more of her story:��

“It’s important to get the community involved in engineering activities” said Marty Brown, a UofL engineering student and one of the organizers. “We want the future to be engineering and this is a great way to have fun while showcasing engineering as well.”��

In addition to these activities, the E-Expo also included some competitions. Students, for example, were tasked with designing Rube Goldberg, chain reaction machines. The students’ goal was to design a contraption that could spin a wheel around at least once. Jacob Prather and two of his friends created one of the more elaborate Rube Goldberg designs, which included a rocket, toy race-cars and a��Ferris��wheel.��

“We all like electricity and other scientific forms so it’s a good opportunity to apply those things and you get to make a project that achieves a goal and is fun to work on,” said Prather.��

The UofL engineering students who helped organize this event hope these activities and competitions will inspire these young minds to eventually pursue engineering as a career.��

Check out some highlights from the event:��

Seniors taking professor Gary Osborne’s mechanical engineering class were tasked with designing Capstone Projects and inventing prototypes to present during the end of the year showcase last weekend.

“It is a culmination of everything they learned in their undergraduate curriculum and how to go through and design a project from stage one,” Osborne said.

Local companies and organizations asked students to design products that could solve a company’s problem. For example, the UofL Police Department asked the students to develop a new, less expensive anti-theft bicycle alarm and tracker system. UofL engineering student Elizabeth Cross not only created a working tracker but may have also designed something that could be used beyond bicycles.

“It uses an easy-to-use smartphone application, so anyone with a smartphone can track any of their products whether it be a bike or a backpack or a car,” said Cross.

Check out some of the students’ stories below:

The biggest worries for most college students might be getting to class or completing assignments. But University of Louisville senior Briana Bonham faces an even a greater challenge – Cystic Fibrosis.

At 3 months old, Bonham was diagnosed with CF, a genetic, chronic terminal disease that affects her lungs, digestive system and reproductive system. It will most likely kill her before she is 40, but Bonham doesn’t let CF control her life.

“When I look at it, everyone is going to pass away at some point so why would you waste it?” said Bonham.

Bonham is taking up to 18 hours of classes per semester and is studying to become a lawyer in medical malpractice. Each day, she carries a vibrating vest along with her books. She must put on the vest for 20 minutes to two hours, twice a day to loosen the buildup of fluid in her lungs and allow her to breathe. Bonham doesn’t ask for anyone’s sympathy, but she does inspire everyone around her.

Mark Running, one of Bonham’s biology professors, said, “She really does, I think, inspire everybody … She has Cystic Fibrosis and she’s not letting that limit her studies.”

Click to learn more about her story:

Passport Health Plan is a community-based, nonprofit care organization that has been��administering��Medicaid��benefits in Kentucky for over 20 years.��Through their IHOP, or Improved Health Outcomes Program,��Passport provides��grants to other community advocates striving to build health-related programs for Kentuckians. One of their IHOP partners includes UofL.��

At UofL’s School of Nursing, the grant money is helping��mothers and caregivers of��special��needs children fight against depression.

And, at the��Institute��for��Sustainable Health and��Optimal Aging, they brought��a free health clinic and healthy-eating classes to over 500 Hispanic��residents��in Shelby��County. Anna Faul, at the Institute for Sustainable Health,��said that none of this would be possible without the grant from Passport.��

“They’re reaching people who are��very��hard to reach. This is a very big success story for them,” said Faul.����

Click below to learn more:��

Over 300 undergraduate students from across the country applied, but only 41 were chosen to learn from some of the best professionals in cancer research.

The Cancer ����ֱ�� Program is an annual summer training program held at UofL’s Clinical Translational Research Building. For 10 weeks, students collaborate with faculty from the James Graham Brown Cancer Center to conduct their own research relating to the study of cancer.

“The opportunity to have some independent research through the Cancer ����ֱ�� Program is what drove me to research as a career,” said Douglas Saforo, a student at UofL’s School of Medicine.

According to Dr. David Hein, Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, the National Cancer Institute funds the program. The goal is “to help motivate and recruit the next generation of cancer researchers,” Hein said.��

Another focus of the program is to find interested African American students, such as Delana Gilkey; one of this year’s participants. With a long history of cancer in her family, Gilkey is determined to learn more for the sake of her family’s future.

“All the women on my mother’s side have developed cancer. So I am trying to figure out why,” said Gilkey.

Learn more below:��

The space summer camp, held at UofL’s Rauch Planetarium, is one of several on-campus education camps for kids. The week-long program focused on the mysteries of outer space and what it takes to be an astronaut through fun, hands-on activities. For one activity, campers sent film capsules soaring into the air by combining Alka Seltzer and water to create “rocket fuel,” for example.��

According to Space Camp Director Breanna Ausbrooks, the goal of the camp goes beyond space to get kids excited about any STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) field. “It doesn’t have to be space, but I really want to plant the seeds for them to want to learn more,” said Ausbrooks.

And what did the kids learn about spaceships? “That they are actually bigger and harder to drive than you think,” said camper Thomas Clayton.

Check out the video below to learn more:��

More than 150 UofL Faculty, mental health professionals, teenagers and other concerned citizens gathered at the summit to come up with ideas on how to combat youth violence in Louisville. Looking beyond a child’s behavior is the first place to start according to Monica Wendel, associate dean at the UofL School of Public Health and Information Sciences.

“We shouldn’t be asking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ We should be asking ‘What happened to you,’” Wendel said.

Other sessions focused on topics like drug abuse, parenting skills and gun safety. There was even a little healing through painting. Each forum focused on helping kids by providing them a better chance to lead a long and successful life.

“I hope that they can self-identify the effects that violence has had on them living in our community,” said Dr. Karen Krigger from Family and Geriatric Medicine.

Check out more information about the summit:��

The National Institutes of Health funded UofL with an $8 million grant to start the center in 2016. UofL researchers are now looking at how alcohol impacts the entire body including the lungs, intestines and other organs.

“Our big focus is how nutrition interacts with alcohol to cause organ injury” said Craig McClain, Alcohol Research Center director.

Alcohol doesn’t provide calories, protein, minerals or vitamins to sustain the body according to McClain. Because of this, patients’ metabolism and their diet are negatively affected. So individuals who consume on average 15 drinks per week are at risk of health issues.

McClain says his team has many more questions to answer concerning the effects of alcohol, but they are determined to solve them.

Check out more below: