International & Exchange Students

"The ACE internship funding ... helped me to be able to help people." 

Refugee Reception & Placement Intern, Nashville International Center for Empowerment

As a Sewanee student from Paraguay, Nahuel Martinez knew firsthand what it was like to leave one’s home country and find a new place in the United States. As a politics and international and global studies major, he had an academic interest in immigration policy. But it was his summer internship with the Nashville International Center for Empowerment (NICE) that gave Martinez a new perspective on the human experience of being a refugee.

Ezechias looked for a college where he was not just another number, but where he was part of a family. Worried about his transition from living in Rwanda to being a student in the United States, he wanted a university that would not only help him grow, but also stand by his side as he adjusted to a new environment. He found that at Sewanee. Another of Ezechias’s concerns for college was whether or not his university would offer ample opportunities for research and internships. He’s found that at Sewanee, too.

Mandy first began writing in 2007, when her father introduced her to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. After high school, she spent time in Australia, studying mass communications and performing her poetry, and in Myanmar, working as the co-founder and editor-in-chief of a literary magazine. At the time, Mandy’s younger brother had been accepted at Sewanee; hence, she began considering Sewanee as a possible option for her future, too. She was instantly struck by the Domain’s beauty and saw that Sewanee’s environment would be a great source of inspiration for her writing. After discovering that Sewanee has an exceptional English department, Mandy was convinced that Sewanee was the next step on her academic journey.

Martin found that Sewanee was the right balance of challenging academics and active campus life that he needed from his four-year University. With the aid of advisors, he was given a list of universities in the United States he would be able to attend. On this list were a few large universities; however, Martin felt that the size of some public universities was too large for him and he wouldn’t be able to focus on academics. Fortunately, Martin’s advisor pushed him towards Sewanee; after doing research on the school, Martin saw that Sewanee was a place that exhibits beauty and challenges its students to excel in the classroom. He describes Sewanee as a “small, competitive, but friendly” university.

After attending Berkshire School (a boarding school in New England), Clementina chose Sewanee, a school in the South, so that she would get a new experience in the United States. Sewanee offered her a prestigious education, a place where she could continue her love for tennis, and 13,000 acres to explore and enjoy the outdoors. She jumped into a new, exciting, and unknown place where she gained valuable lessons and experience.

After visiting universities in Bangladesh, Mohammad felt that schools abroad offered him the best chance to dig into his main interest, engineering, whilst simultaneously exploring other academic subjects. He loved the multi-faceted approach to learning that liberal arts schools offered and decided to apply to schools all across America. Sewanee’s vast, forested campus and its 3-2 engineering program, in which students spend three years studying at Sewanee and two years studying at a partner university with an acclaimed engineering department, appealed to him, and he decided to make Sewanee his home for the next stage of his life.

Despite being accepted into medical schools in England and Hungary, Zsanett chose to attend Sewanee because of its great extracurricular opportunities. She wanted to gain knowledge with hands-on experience as an active community member, so she became involved as a student leader in the Organization for Cross Cultural Understanding and in the Office of Civic Engagement. Sewanee also has provided her with many research opportunities that have helped her discover science more deeply. She attended Yale School of Medicine for a semester and immersed herself in the discipline of psychiatry, and she has interned every summer at Yale and Vanderbilt with children, adolescents, and adults on the autism spectrum.