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  • Andrew Szendrey

Building Upon the Dream

“I came to Northeastern on a whim… it was a good whim.” –Alissa Lederer


“You learn a lot before you know how to make yourself a home out of anywhere you go.”

-Two Left Feet//Rob Drabkin


Hi y’all! My name is Andrew Szendrey and I am in my third year at Northeastern, still figuring the place out. I got it in my head that it might be fun to drop everything and move to Scotland for five months. And now that’s really happening. I’m going to let you in on my thought process throughout this first blog post, and hopefully by the end of it you’ll understand why I’m typing furiously into a word document instead of drinking a pitcher of beer with my friends at Penguin Pizza tonight.


When I was 16 years old, I learned an important lesson about myself: the longer I stay in the same place, the greater my itch to leave grows. I remember realizing this as we were learning about the tiny home and van life movements in Sophomore English class. Mrs. Hruby was doing her best to teach us about effective social movements; I was daydreaming of driving a van down I-95 with a French press pot of coffee and maybe even a dog.


Three years later, after high school graduation and a summer of odd jobs, my dad and I drove up I-90 from Cleveland to Boston. He helped me unpack, hugged me, and was then kind enough to let me go.


I thought I’d be leaving Boston soon enough, traveling to some new place with some altruistic purpose. But as I grew close to the people around me—in my dorm, at the radio station, in my ASL classes—I developed a love for the people in Boston that soon extended to the city as a whole.


My altruistic vision dissipated into a selfish one as I decided to stay in Boston the summer after Freshman year. In doing so I opted out of my best shot at studying abroad. I had the chance to live the nomadic lifestyle I had dreamt of at 16, but when push came to shove I was too scared to leave.


The original plan was to be an orientation leader, but that flopped when I didn’t make it past the first round of interviews. By no means was all hope was lost. My mentor, Professor Oakes of the Bioengineering department, graciously supported my work in her lab for the summer. Though the work was going well, the summer brought hard times for me personally. I watched on as my new friends slowly left Boston and traveled to exciting places like France, Ghana, and Japan. Boston was shrinking as the world was growing.


My hard work in the lab that summer paid off when I landed a dreamy coop a few (admittedly long) months later. Working on a professional chemical biology R&D team helped me to gain a better perspective for what I hope to do down the road. I went so far as to change my major to biochemistry to give myself a better shot at meeting those goals.


I changed my major rather late, so I ended up taking Physics 1—and its notoriously painstaking lab co-requisite—last fall. I was in a Friday section of the lab and its only saving grace was the fact that it met every other week.


The end of lab was always met with a sincere desire to get home and take a nap. Immediately after the second session was done, I stomped home to polish off my resume before signing off for the weekend. Checking my email one last time before I closed my laptop, I was surprised to see an email I cared about. Professor Fertuck, the head of the Biochemistry program, wrote (color, syntax, and all): “The Global Experience Office is excited to announce the establishment of $1,500 Science Education Fellowships for the first 10 students who apply to spend the Spring 2020 semester at the University of Dundee, Scotland.”


I had to act quick. Some googling and texting taught me that sending in an application does not bind you to the study abroad program, so you better believe I had mine in within the hour!


I called my parents and they were so excited but confused about my intentions when I couldn’t even point to Dundee on a map. I gathered my roommates and they were shocked by my spontaneity. But this decision was spontaneous only in form, not in thought. I had spent the past 16 months watching my closest friends make their wildest dreams realities. I didn’t have many dreams, so I decided to start living one.

Weeks later, after I had been accepted to the program and was beginning to tell friends, I got an e-mail from Jeff Sullivan asking me to describe my fellowship. I hadn’t thought about it. So I spent the day pondering dreams of my past life, learning how to play a new instrument had always been one. So after the day had passed, I replied to his email with a simple idea: I will buy a banjo when I arrive, and learn how to play while I’m abroad. In the same stroke, I will work with a few other students to create a group blog for the purposes of documenting our travels.



Intriguing storefronts in Dundee.


Mr. Sullivan kindly approved of the idea about six weeks ago. The plan materialized bit by bit, and I am now happy to report that five fellow travelers and I will be providing updates on building hobbies, making new friends, taking classes, and traveling!


It only took a few days to sweep away my coop plans and build a new plan based on dreams of travel and music discovery that I had suppressed in the first half of my college career.

I am now five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, somehow confident that good times are soon to come.

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