So the week started out like any other, except that there seems to have been a wake up call for my team. They finally started paying attention to safety stuff and wore what they were supposed to without having to be asked. Granted, they still forget sometimes BUT it is such a drastic improvement and it’s so great. I only spent Monday-Wednesday working with my team, and they’re making a lot of progress. They put siding up on the house we’ve started from the ground and it’s great to see them working so hard on this project. I can’t wait to see it finished! On Wednesday evening one of the other TLs, Alleigh, drove from Ocean Springs to pick me up to take me to the New Orleans airport (after saying goodbye to my team and making sure they were set before I left; I felt like a mom saying goodbye to her kids) where I was flying to head to Denver. Because there are so many teams in New Orleans, we hung out with one of them for a bit, which was a lot of fun. I don’t normally see any CMs from the other unit, so it was nice to spend some time with them. After that, Alleigh and another CM drove me to the airport where I was planning on spending the night. I had looked online and called the airport to see if it was ok, and after hearing that it was, I decided that was logistically easier. I found a few chairs without arm rests between them and tried to sleep, but because I was trying to hold onto my backpack and because I was nervous about not waking up for my 6am flight, I didn’t get much sleep. Not to mention it got cold with the AC on. There were other people sleeping there, and the lights were on the whole time so it wasn’t an unsafe experience, but I only got about 4 hours of sleep. I finally woke up around 3am and just decided to read until my flight. The flight was good, and I arrived a bit early, and then just hopped on the shuttle that took me to my hotel where I met my mom and had some breakfast. Because I was coming from Mississippi, where nothing more than a light sweater is needed, I didn’t have a coat. So, I was in a long-sleeve shirt with a scarf, so after breakfast we went to Outdoor World where I bought a cream colored pea coat =). It was lightly snowing, which was nice. Although it was cold, I liked that it felt more like fall than it does in Bay Saint Louis, AND that there were trees with colored leaves on them!
The School
My mom and I drove to Denver to visit the campus and boy is it tiny! I’m used to bigger campuses, both at UD and BU, but this one, having only 8,000ish students, is a lot smaller. Despite being in the city it still has a nice campus. Basically the main buildings are all within one square city block, which I guess would make it easy to get around. I really liked the green and all of the pretty stone and brick buildings. We walked around the campus for a bit, and had some lunch before I got the chance to sit in on a class, Intelligence and National Security. It was an interesting class, and a small one (all classes are fewer than 30 students, which is similar to the graduate classes I took at BU). I got to speak with one of the students, who also just graduated in May, so it was nice to get a student perspective. After that we attended the open house for the Josef Korbel School and it was great to hear from professors and students. Obviously they want everyone to come to their school, but it was still great to hear how excited and passionate they were about their programs. So, what brought me to DU?
Sometime during my senior year, while looking for graduate programs in international relations, I came across this article, written by the Foreign Policy Association, which ranked the top graduate schools for international studies. The University of Denver was on there and my eyes lit up. I applied to DU as an undergrad but declined acceptance because I thought it was too far away. Now, after graduating, and with dreams of living in Colorado for a bit, I was really excited to read that DU had an excellent international studies program. So I looked into it more and yes, it will cost me an arm and a leg if I don’t get enough scholarships, but I was excited by the variety of programs it offered, from homeland security and international health to humanitarian aid and assistance. I thought I finally found the perfect combination of programs until last week when I came across DU’s Master in Development Practice. I had read about this degree months ago, but for some reason I must not have read the information thoroughly or I would have had it in my mind to go down this track. It is an interdisciplinary program, combining lessons from multiple schools and disciplines. Students are required to take classes in the social sciences (i.e. education, human rights, peace-building, sustainable development), health sciences (i.e. community and global health), the natural sciences (i.e. deforestation), and management and policy making. It combines my wide variety of interests with my desire to learn about multiple issues that go into international development, and that’s not even the best part. The best part is that students are required to study abroad for 6 our of their 26 months. Required! I couldn’t believe it. It combines in-class and online studies with hands on, in-the-field research in Asia (Vietnam and China), Africa (Mozambique and Kenya) and Central America (Guatemala). Students also travel throughout Colorado to Native American nations, to NY and DC for conferences, and are required to do a 5-month internship with a Colorado governmental, corporate, or academic entity. It’s a very structured and intense degree program, and an expensive one, BUT the tuition includes all of the travel (from my understanding from what I’ve read online). I’m also looking at Columbia University (which also has an MDP program) and NYU, but this one is my favorite program.
The City
The city of Denver was not what I initially expected. Coming from the airport and driving along I-70 W, all I could see were run-down buildings and industrial plants along the sides. I was heavily reminded of images I’ve seen of Philly in the 1980s. I was extremely surprised as how industrious the area we were driving by was. The area the campus was in was also a grungier looking place compared to the actual downtown area, but at the same time I really liked that it wasn’t pristine and perfect; it was raw and flawed. I’ve often found myself drawn to the grittier parts of cities, and while I haven’t been to many, I have an unexplained desire to do so (i.e. the Bronx, Harlem, Southie in Boston etc) and is probably, to some degree, why I also find myself drawn to lesser developed countries. I can’t pinpoint the reason, but the draw has always been there. Downtown Denver, however, was clean, colorful and fun. Full of restaurants, places to shop, art and trees/flowers, it was a nice place to visit. We really only went to the 16th Street Mall to walk around for a bit, but it was interesting to see how different this part of Denver looked than what we had just driven by. One of the greatest parts, I think, was being able to see the mountains in the distance behind some of the buildings. The combination of city and outdoors is something that attracts me to Denver. Overall, we had a good experience in Denver and hope to get the opportunity to come back someday!
The Mountains and other parts of Colorado
After spending Thursday looking at DU, we spent Friday exploring other parts of Colorado. We first stopped by Hammond’s Candy Store where we took a factory tour and saw the candy being hand-made. It was really interesting and I couldn’t believe that the small Denver-based factory was the only place of production for the entire country! It was pretty cool though; not too many places like it anymore! After that we drove to Historic Georgetown, CO where we headed away from the city and 40 minutes west into the mountains. It was so BEAUTIFUL and I finally got to see the mountains I am in love with (actually, the day prior we didn’t see any because of the overcast weather; in the morning we finally realized there were mountains on the horizon once the sky cleared!). It was interesting to walk in the town’s small main street and see the historic buildings in their (mostly) original conditions. The town itself was a bit run-down but I really liked being able to walk throughout the various shops. We had lunch there before we continued to shop and ended our excursion by driving to a wildlife viewing area to view the bighorn sheep. There was a group of them that we got to see which was cool. On the last day, before we headed back to the airport, we really didn’t have much else to do or anything planned so we decided to visit the Wild Animal Sanctuary, which is a sanctuary for abandoned and abused big carnivores (i.e. lions, tigers, bears, wolves etc). It was really cold out, but we still got to see the animals. I really just wanted to go play with some of them, but obviously that wasn’t possible (well technically it was if I wanted to jump a fence BUT I’d prefer to live…).
After visiting the sanctuary we headed to the airport where we sat for a few hours waiting for our flights. While the waiting was uneventful, the first 10 minutes of my ride was anything but. We hit a normal amount of turbulence and everything was shakey for a bit, but then (I wish I knew more technical things about flying and turbulence…) the plane jolted and dropped a bit (nothing major, but any kind of drop that high up is enough to make people nervous). The woman next to me gasped while I clutched onto the seat. I can’t remember what I was thinking, as it all happened so quickly, but after I couldn’t help but laugh, wondering what I’d really do if we had in fact kept falling. I also couldn’t believe that had happened, however normal it might be, but was glad it was for just a split second.
Overall it was a very good and successful trip to Denver and I look forward to a future where I might be back there for a few years!
P.S. I started and finished the book In the Sanctuary Of Outcasts by Neil White, which is a true story of a man sent to jail for kiting checks in MS (actually not too far from the bay), but the jail is also home to one of the last “leper” colonies (he refrains from using that term in the book, and I would too if there was another way to describe it that everyone would immediately catch on to!). It was a really great memoir and a really quick read!
Images below: the inside of the Hammond’s Candies factory; my and my mom in the gift shop; view of the Rockies; historic Georgetown (2 pictures); the big horn sheep; the 16th Street Mall; 16th street mall artwork; 2 lion cubs playing at the sanctuary
Temporarily Local 