Category: Spring 2026 Blog

I want to start by saying that traveling to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina was an amazing and beautiful experience, and I will most definitely be returning to Bosnia in…

How does a country recover after the emotional and physical destruction of ground warfare or genocide? The Yugoslav wars (1991-2001) happened before I or any of my peers in this…

The first two weeks after returning from Transylvania were difficult, given my 3-pages-per-hour reading speed. The program started out more intellectual, especially through reading Sebastian’s novel. But at this point,…

As could be guessed by my last name, the paternal side of my family hails from the former Yugoslavia. Until this trip, I never had the chance to visit. Oft…

After travelling throughout the Balkans, I couldn’t help but notice, except for other tourists, there was a lack of people who looked like me: East Asians. This is best characterized…

Despite the nation-state’s current, constantly maligned status, it seems to work in the context for which it was created, producing stability in Europe. In No Country for Old Men, Cormac…

When I was in third grade, my mother first signed me up for the coveted position of Junior Docent at Gadsby’s Tavern Museum in my hometown of Alexandria, Virginia. In…

We drove into Belgrade at sunset. The city  — a mass of concrete and brick — was disappearing into the night. Only graffiti remained visible under the streetlights. Belgrade, with…

I chose this OCS program because I have never really understood nationalism. I am mixed-race between Chinese and German ancestry without strong connections to either side. My father is from…

Back home, I have three cats. They are spoiled in the way all beloved pets should be. Traveling through the Balkans, though, I kept noticing how many animals lived without…