Josselyn Vazquez-Catalan

Coming to Nebraska, I didn’t know many people. My hometown has a large Latino population; everyone speaks or understands some form of Spanish, so Lincoln was a bit of a shock. I tried to change who I was at first, but my friends found it very interesting that I was Hispanic because a bunch of them went to primarily white schools. Slowly, I started embracing me again, and let myself go back to listening to Spanish music, speaking Spanish and all that.

The first way I made friends was through my Learning Community. A lot of my other friends came from First Husker, which is a program for first-generation students. As First Huskers, we got to move in four days early and were shown all around campus. I still talk to one of my best friends I met through that program—we’re moving in together next year.

I was originally a business major, but when I realized I’m more of a people person, I switched to a double major in global and ethnic studies with an emphasis in Latin American studies. A lot of my required classes—like history and psychology—are centered around understanding why people are the way they are.

Before college, my understanding of history was rooted in an American perspective. I feel like my major has changed my whole understanding of history by allowing me to understand and empathize with what people from different ethnicities have gone through. It also opens a door to connect with people from different cultures, especially if you can share something that you might know about their country.

My freshman year, I was in a history class about the Holocaust. Some students came in to talk about a summer study abroad trip to the Czech Republic, with some stops in Poland and Berlin. I almost didn’t go for it, but Lori Romano from First Husker convinced me to apply at the last minute, and I got in!

The trip was focused on European history. We got to learn in-depth about European cultures, tour through the streets, hike the border of the Czech Republic and Poland and meet  people from around the world. One day, we got lost on a bridge and met a group from France. They didn’t know a lot of English, and we didn’t know a lot of French, but we found ways to communicate. We went out with them for our entire last week there. We all follow each other on Instagram, and we still talk occasionally.

I didn’t know anyone beforehand—we all met on the first day of the trip at dinner and were thrown together for a whole month. When we came back from the trip, we all hung out every weekend that summer. I met some of my best friends on that trip.