By Savannah Saunders ‘11
From Megan Andrews’ stories of spending a winter in a freezing Chilean classroom to working at a zoo in Tallahassee, Fla., one quickly learns she is no stranger to engaged learning and pursuing projects she is passionate about.
Andrews, a senior psychology major at Hendrix, attended Jefferson County Open School in her hometown of Golden, Colo., where her parents taught and her brother, Colin, attended.
For Andrews, “Open schooling” included frequent trips to Canada, Europe, Florida, and Mexico that reinforced her education (e.g. she began to learn Spanish on her trip to Mexico and is now fluent) as well as in-depth student discussions and reflections. During her junior year of high school, Andrews also lead a “wilderness trip” or backpacking excursion.
Similar to Your Hendrix Odyssey, Andrews was required to complete six “passages” in different categories and wrote detailed reflections about every class she completed, submitting a 40-page transcript to colleges during the application process.
Andrews made her first visit to Hendrix in spring 2007. She also considered Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., but Hendrix’s personable community won Andrews’ heart in the end.
The summer after her freshman year, Andrews worked as a girl’s counselor at a Boys and Girls Club summer camp. In her sophomore year, she worked with Head Start, a national program that promotes school readiness through the cognitive development in children. The program focuses on working with very young children to develop math and reading skills early in their education.
“It was especially wonderful working with people in the South, which is something I hadn’t had the chance to do yet,” she said.
For Andrews’ junior year, she spent 13 months in Chile, living with a host family in Viña del Mar where she Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valpariso. She took mostly Spanish courses the first semester and psychology classes taught in Spanish during the second semester.
“Most of the times, I was the only gringa in all my classes.” It was a completely different academic world for Andrews – one that called for riding a public bus to school every day and travelling to nearby cities for research.
“I really enjoyed riding the bus, I was able to meet all different kinds of people,” she said. “It really allowed me to integrate into the society smoothly.”
Andrews conducted research on children in poverty, visiting orphanages in La Paz, Bolivia and Cusco, Peru, during the summer months.
“We interacted with kids who had no family, as well as those whose family was unable to adequately take care of them,” said Andrews of her Odyssey in South America.
Following graduation, Andrews hopes to work for City Year, a branch of AmeriCorps devoted to helping children stay in school and on track to receive a full education. She has applied to work in Miami, where 40 percent of fourth-grade students read below grade level and more than 45 percent of high school students drop out.
Whatever she does, the world will surely be a better place because of the perseverance, passion, and grace that Megan displays on a daily basis.
Savannah Saunders is a senior English major (with Creative Writing emphasis) and field hockey player from San Diego, Calif. She is a student writer in the Office of College Relations.