After writing my pre-departure post, I realized I should introduce myself!

My name is McKenzie Harris, and I’m a third-year student at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Before coming to WWU, I lived in Bend, OR with my family and in Niles, CA before that. After my upcoming study abroad trip, I’ll be able to add Prague, Czech Republic to that list! In my free time, I enjoy reading, playing guitar, and swimming. Some of my interests are writing, books, photography, and music.

My host school in the Czech Republic is the University of New York in Prague (UNYP), a small international school that provides a variety of degrees and classes taught in English. At Western, I’m majoring in psychology and minoring in environmental studies, so I’ll be taking a mix of psychology and environmental studies classes while I’m abroad:

• Music psychology
• Sex and gender in global perspective
• Psychology of adjustment
• Environmental crisis and global sustainability

I didn’t choose UNYP for a particular reason; it is just the host school associated with the ISEP study abroad program I was accepted to. I did choose Prague on purpose, however. From the first time I heard of Prague, I wanted to see it. My introduction to the city was through a book I read in middle school which was set (in addition to a parallel fantasy world, of course) in Prague. I read the author’s description of how “gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels,” and how the city’s wind “carried the memory of magic, revolution, and violins,” and I thought it sounded like a fairy tale. In the following years, I added other cities to my long list of places I wished to see. When I began college 2 years ago, I was able to consider studying abroad for the first time, and I practically overflowed with ideas for where to go. Since I’m majoring in psychology, I looked for programs where I could take unique psychology classes in an interesting city. Knowing the world has a great number of interesting cities, I had some trouble narrowing my options, but there were several places that stayed at the front of my mind throughout the search process, and Prague was one of them. At a meeting, my advisor suggested the Fall 2023 ISEP Direct program at UNYP which exactly fit what I wanted out of my study abroad experience. It would also fulfill my long-held hopes of seeing Prague. At this point, it wasn’t just a dream city, but a tangible one that I’d heard was historic, beautiful, and safe.

And the rest is history! Now I’m off to the Czech Republic in a week, and I’m participating in WWU’s Travel Writing Program to record my experience. I don’t know how often I’ll write in this blog, but I’ll try to share the most exciting things and things that could be most helpful to future study abroad students.

Na shledanou! (goodbye!)