Lily on a weekend trip to Strasbourg, France, while studying abroad in summer 2015.

Lily Iijima ’16, an international studies major with a Japanese minor, interned during the spring semester with Go Eat Give, an Atlanta nonprofit that educates the public about differing cultures in an effort to eliminate stereotypes—a mission that resonated with Lily.

“Growing up in a multi-cultural household, Lily has seen first-hand the power of personally experiencing a different culture to eliminate previous misconceptions,” reads the Go, Eat, Give website. “Through this work, Lily is committed to educating others about different countries and regions while learning about them herself.”

“I have been continuously exposed to relations and customs of other nations and their cultures through my coursework,” Lily adds. “I believe that this led me to pursue an internship at Go Eat Give.”

While interning, she was encouraged to write a guest blog post that explored “Learning about Muslim Contributions to Civilization,” the topic of a lecture cosponsored by Go, Eat, Give and The Atlantic Institute. Lily credits classes in her major and minor for preparing her, particularly Core 301: Historical Perspectives on the Social Order with Dr. Mark Fagiano, an adjunct lecturer in philosophy.

“A great deal of what I learned during the lecture was a condensed version of what [Dr. Fagiano] had taught in his course,” says Lily. “It was the first time I had felt as though a course at Oglethorpe had helped me with a task outside of our school, both with the material that I was writing and the technical skills I needed to write it.”

Lily is studying abroad this summer in Dortmund, Germany as part of the International Summer Program, and plans to find another internship this fall that will build on her Go Eat Give internship and her coursework.