I am currently writing in the plane en route to Zurich, from which I will then proceed to Belgrade. The reason I have waited until the last moment to post about this upcoming trip is that the year has screamed to a close as my class, now rising seniors, has completed finals, bid farewell to the graduating class, and is now perhaps pondering our own futures beyond college. Now that overhead lights all around me are switching off and flight attendants are passing out eye-masks and blankets, I finally have had a chance to catch my breath and consider the magnitude of the experience I am embarking on. Whenever I have had the opportunity to go abroad previously, I feel that I have grown incredibly in my understanding of the world. When I traveled to South Africa last summer to study health systems in Cape Town and the surrounding regions, it was the first time I had ever been to the African continent. I learned about the extraordinary discrepancies in access to health care, depending both regionally and racially, largely a by-product of the apartheid regime and systematic suppression of blacks. I left South Africa feeling both burdened and enlightened, with new knowledge of sociopolitical challenges, but also having learned new methods and strategies to approach them. When I touch down in Belgrade, it will be a new series of lessons and experiences related to the social and political challenges faced by these countries, with appropriate attention directed toward the lingering effects of conflict during the disintegration of Yugoslavia. I’ll end with something that I have taken away from each place I have visited prior, and will certainly apply to this experience –wherever I have been, I have found amazing sources of inspiration unique to each place to improve the world around me, helping me to sculpt my own passions and understand how they may lead to the betterment of others.