When my cohort and I first walked into the StudyBeyondBorders office a few weeks ago, to be completely honest, I had no idea what to expect. At that point, I had been in Cambodia for about a month, but everything about being here still felt new. I was learning how to navigate Battambang, practicing Khmer with my homestay family, and getting used to life with the six other Princeton students in my cohort. Now, I was about to begin another new part of my year: volunteering with a local organization.
I have come to Cambodia, and am staying here until May, through Princeton University’s Novogratz Bridge Year Program, a program which gives incoming freshmen at Princeton University the opportunity to defer enrollment in university for a year while living and learning in one of five locations around the world: Cambodia, Senegal, Bolivia, China, and Indonesia. As part of the program, each student also spends four days of their week volunteering with a local organization.
I wanted to take a gap year to both reflect on my values and identity and also explore the world outside of the same small region of the United States I’ve grown up in. Coming to Cambodia has given me the opportunity to do just that.
Now, about 15,000 kilometers away from my hometown of Arlington, Virginia, my days look quite different from what they did a few months ago. Between Khmer classes at the National University of Battambang, time with my homestay family, exploring Battambang with my cohort, and now my work at Study Beyond Borders, I’ve quickly settled into a routine that I couldn’t have imagined before arriving here.
I’ve been so grateful to spend these past few weeks beginning my work at Study Beyond Borders Cambodia. While volunteering with a local NGO is a key part of the “Bridge Year experience,” and one I was greatly looking forward to, I came into the year knowing relatively little about the organizations we would be working with. I knew that Study Beyond Borders worked in the education sector, a field I’d always been passionate about, but I didn’t know much beyond that.
That changed when our cohort came to tour SBB. Right from SreyPhet and Phanna’s initial presentation about the organization, I was struck by SBB’s impact, as well as the thought and story behind its approach to education. Just as importantly, everyone who worked at SBB made me feel so welcome from the moment we walked through the door. When the time came for us to choose our placement sites, SBB felt like the perfect place to spend my year.
Even beyond learning about the mission of SBB through my initial visit, the role and responsibilities SBB offers me for the year fit perfectly with the advocacy and volunteering work I had done previously in high school.
In my role as Volunteer Content Writer Intern for SBB, I look forward to spreading awareness about SBB’s important mission and accomplishments through social media posts, reports, and newsletters, and building on the work I’ve been passionate about for many years.
At the same time, I’m realizing that I have just as much to learn here as I have to contribute. Most of my previous experiences with education and advocacy have been in the United States, and I’ve never worked in an organization quite like SBB before. I’m looking forward to learning from my colleagues about the organization’s history and the communities it works with, while getting a better understanding of what educational work looks like in Cambodia.
Even in the short time I’ve started working at StudyBeyondBorders, I’ve made so many amazing memories and connections with everyone here. From lunches with coworkers here in Battambang to GoogleMeets with my mentors in the Siem Reap Office to even a birthday celebration complete with sweet treats, the start to my year has been so rewarding. I’m so excited to see where this year with SBB takes me and, hopefully, to contribute something meaningful along the way.
