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.Ěý 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.Ěý

The group also painted the exterior of a local kindergarten and explored Zagreb, Plitvice Lakes, Jasenovac Concentration Camp, Cigoc stork village, and Vinarija Florijanovic Winery.

Mechanical Engineering professor Dr. Ellen Brehob serves as the academic representative of the Speed School for Croatia, a country situated in Eastern Europe near the Adriatic Sea. With two decades of service under her belt, Brehob sees the program first and foremost as immersion in to new experiences.

“I think that Croatia is different because it’s not a third world country. They have good food, good teeth. The program is a little different. I think you go because you want to do something good. But it’s not like we’re going to give them good drinking water, it’s more a cultural exchange,” Brehob said.

The Croatian program is relatively new, having developed within approximately the last six years. A former Communist state, Croatia endured a grueling civil war in the early 1990s, from which it has since recovered. That was part of the discussion as the Croatia program developed.

“What they wanted was conflict resolution and how to keep peace, and we haven’t really met that,” Brehob said.Ěý

As part of the multi-disciplinary program, engineering students work along with communications and nursing students to help assemble a program that they can take to Croatian high school students.

“Our students get to talk with high school students (about) what it’s like to live in Croatia, what are their lives like. The Croatian students are really intrigued by Americans. They like talking to UofL students,” Brehob said.Ěý

Brehob hopes that the students walk away with a fresh perspective on the chances that they are afforded in the United States. Croatian students are often short on career options, and Brehob reports that a majority seek to move out of the country to find employment. Still, she has had a great experience in Croatia and believes that her students have benefited as well.

“I love that in Croatia, they have a real sense of family. They don’t have as much money, but they have a happy, comfortable life,” Brehob said.

The full story about Brehob’s experience is available on the J.B. Speed School of Engineering .Ěý