Alumni Updates

• Bordeaux Reunion: Four members of the Bordeaux class of 1965 met for the 5th time in 50 years at the home of Susan Pollard Vasterling. They  celebrated Cheryl Worley Sherrill's 71st birthday and talked and reminisced about their year in Bordeaux and the rest of Europe. Attending were Susan Pollard Vasterling, now in San Diego, CA; Cheryl Worley Sherrill, now in Warner Robins, GA; Penny Sabol Olson, now in Phoenix, AZ; and Jeanie Puleston Fleming, now in Santa Fe, NM.

• Homecoming Reunion: CU Boulder Study Abroad hosted a brunch this October on Homecoming Weekend for alumni of the Regensburg & Bordeaux exchanges, and the Art in Italy, Siena, and London Finance Global Seminars. It was a real treat to be able to catch up, hear each other’s stories, and eat lots of good food!

• Eric Hanson: Eric graduated CU with a BA in international affairs in 2005. As a junior, he did a CIEE program in Prague that really fed his life-long desire to travel. After working in Oregon for a few years, he was offered the chance to move to the Netherlands and work for a small furniture and home decor company, managing their U.K. sales. Eric moved in 2011. Since then he's had the wonderful opportunity to travel internationally both professionally and for leisure as often as he could ever have dreamed. He is now responsible for all export markers, which has the added benefit of exploring new markets in far-flung places like China and Japan. Living as he does just outside of Amsterdam, he has a tremendously international life: his fiancée is from Australia and teaches in an English-language school in Holland and they have friends from all over the world. They are fortunate to take vacations in France and go to Germany for a weekend of culture. Including travel for work, this year Eric has been to 15 different countries and had the chance to meet and get to know people all over the world. Says Eric: "And corny as it sounds, it was absolutely my experience with study abroad that got me hooked on seeing the world."

• Dave Reierson: Spending the fall semester of 1973 in Jalapa, Mexico, Dave graduated from CU with a BA in Philosophy in 1978. He spent the next two years working in Ecuador and Chile before returning to the United States to earn his M.A. from Georgetown University in Latin American Studies. Dave recently completed a career with AT&T and Lucent Technologies, working in New Business Development throughout Latin America.  Says Dave: "My 1973 semester in the CU Study Abroad Program in Mexico established a 30-year long purpose of studying, living and working in Latin America. I am very grateful for that life-changing experience." 

• Brendan Allen (University of Minnesota Study & Internships in Rome, Italy - Spring 2015): Brendan studied abroad in Rome, Italy, in spring 2015, and has been working with the Study Abroad office for the past 18 months. Now, itching for another global adventure, he is moving Down Under to live and work in Australia for the next year with the Work Holiday Visa. Brendan is starting in Sydney, where he will start a six month au pair position in January. After that, he plans to bounce around Oceania and southeast Asia before maybe eventually making his way back to the States.  

• Sara Jenkins: Sara is a proud CU alum, Boulder native and Global Buff. She attended CU from 2011-2015 and graduated in May 2015 with a BA in Spanish Language & Literature and her Secondary Teaching License. Sara studied abroad in Granada, Spain in Fall 2013, visiting cities in Western Europe and Northern Africa, improving her Spanish, and pushing herself out of her comfort zone daily. When she graduated in 2015, after a semester of student teaching, Sara knew she wanted to be a Spanish teacher - but not yet. Says Sara: "Studying abroad humbled me, and showed me how small my personal world is - Boulder, my culture, the United States and how much is still out there." She made the jump and enrolled in a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where one of her friends was living as an English teacher. Sara left September of 2015 for a one month course - then she was on her own with just one other friend. Sara believes that moving to Buenos Aires was one of the best decisions she has made in her life, saying: "When I graduated from CU, I was filled with that Millennial post-grad anxiety - stress about finding an apartment, a job, a place in the world to call my own. Buenos Aires is a chaotic, messy, beautiful city that made me question everything I knew - and I am better off for it." Sara lived in Argentina for almost 8 months as an English teacher - and traveled through Peru, Uruguay, Patagonia and parts of the Amazon. Upon returning to Colorado, she moved to Denver, worked temporarily in a high school in Thornton, and is now teaching 3rd-5th grade Spanish. Says Sara: "My life was defined by my experience studying abroad. It was the springboard for nearly all my life decisions in the past three years." She is planning a trip to Asia in 2017, and plans to end that trip by revisiting Spain, where it all began just over three years ago.