On one of Katie Cummins’s last days in Argentina, she went to a barbecue hosted by her boss’s neighbor. The Communications fourth-year stayed until 2 a.m. talking, laughing and enjoying traditional Argentinian food and beverages with her newfound community.

Cummins studied abroad through Northwestern’s Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI), a summer study abroad experience that places students at full-time internships with local development organizations in a variety of countries ranging from Bolivia to Vietnam. Cummins worked for a nonprofit that provides environmental consulting for sustainable and urban development projects while studying in Salta, Argentina. 

Cummins says the late-night barbecue memory encapsulated what it meant to participate in an immersive study abroad experience. 

“This is so magical,” she says. “Just being able to integrate into a community like this and being able to pass an evening in such a lovely way.” 

GESI aims to connect undergraduates with the resources needed to learn about and confront global issues. All grades and majors are eligible to participate in the various programs, and students are assigned to internships based on their interests and preferred location, as well as their language ability, if they opt to live in a Spanish-speaking country. 

Prior to Cummins’s summer abroad, Argentina had elected President Javier Milei, a conservative leader who slashed federal spending. The nonprofit’s funding had been cut, so Cummins worked alongside a fellow Northwestern student to help build its website and form a strategy for finding alternative funding. 

After Cummins returned from Argentina, she became a Global Learning Office (GLO) Fellow, and now runs the GLO ambassadors program that promotes studying abroad. 

“I’ve loved getting to know the GLO staff more, and being a mentor for other students and a campus leader in that regard,” Cummins says. 

Weinberg third-year Annika Macy also sought a study abroad experience beyond a stereotypical quarter in Madrid. She found what she was looking for with GESI, in the form of a homestay with a Costa Rican family, an opportunity to speak the local language and become part of the community. 

Macy lived just outside Costa Rica’s capital city of San Jose. She worked at a nonprofit that provides students from impoverished neighborhoods with meals, academic support and a place to stay before and after school. Macy says she took away many lessons from her summer with GESI, particularly about how to connect with others despite a language barrier. 

“Especially with kids, being able to just play games with them and talk about what their interests are and things like that — at a very low level, you can still build connections,” Macy says. “It definitely reinforced my decision to do a Spanish minor because I really find it important to be able to connect with people who I otherwise wouldn’t be able to speak to.”

Macy says her time spent in Costa Rica opened her eyes to the importance of education. She wants to continue the nonprofit’s work by making education more accessible for students across the globe. 

“Education became a more important part of what I want to pursue in the future,” Macy says. “Any study abroad program, especially this one, can really push your comfort zone, because you’re not just taking classes. You’re really diving deep into living in a community… I think you can learn a lot about yourself and about other cultures.”

This summer, GESI plans to send students to Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Thailand, Uganda and Vietnam. SESP second-year Adelle Johnson, who will be going to Costa Rica this summer, says the program has been on her radar since before even applying to Northwestern. 

Starting this year, SESP students can use GESI to fulfill their practicum and experiential learning requirement, which Johnson plans to do. She says she hopes to participate in one of the GESI educational justice programs to learn more about education in a hands-on way.

GESI encourages students to immerse themselves in the language so they are able to communicate more easily with locals. Johnson says she will learn more about education in other countries through conversing with real students. 

“Getting conversation with native speakers can be difficult, especially outside of an academic setting,” Johnson says. “I feel like the language use is so different, so I’m really excited to stay in a homestay and be able to use the language all the time and get more practice with that. It’s really a unique experience.”

Weinberg fourth-year Caitlin Jimmar, who studied abroad in Bolivia with GESI in 2023, interned with a nonprofit organization that provides care and advocacy for people with disabilities. Jimmar, whose mother is a speech therapist, helped start a speech therapy program for the nonprofit. She says GESI taught her about the importance of local advocacy work.

“With the program, there’s also a class component in international development, and I think that class is really important because it gives you the theoretical background to come into that nonprofit space, especially taking into account your positionality as an American college student coming into an organization,” Jimmar says.

Jimmar says her homestay experience was her favorite aspect of GESI. She says living with a large family resembled a summer at home with her own. 

“Living at college, we’re away from our families, and we have a completely different living experience during these four years,” Jimmar says. “So it was really nice to spend a summer living with a family again, helping my host niece with her homework at night and watching TV together on the weekends. One of my host sisters was about my age, so we hung out a lot. We still talk today.”

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