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I used to think the movie Back to the Future was just classic Hollywood drama until our own family's story began to mirror the fantasy. Having spent many happy and formative years of my own childhood here in Switzerland, it was a dream to think of offering my children a similar experience of living abroad and attending international school. Admittedly, as a lawyer my job was not likely to move our family to Europe any time soon. However, when my husband Jeff was offered a sabbatical from his position as Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, he and I decided it was an opportunity we needed to seize. For our children it would be the gift of new experiences: to live abroad, meet new people, see and absorb a new culture. For me it was a chance to go "back to the future," and return to beautiful Switzerland. Little did we know just how fortunate we would be, not just in coming to Zurich, but in choosing to enroll our kids in the International School of Zug and Luzern! ISZL proved to be incredibly warm and welcoming, a school striving to create a caring community of people from around the globe in settings that seem lifted from postcards. Both of our boys have thrived in this fantastic environment, with its strong academics, dedicated teachers and staff, unparalleled arts program, competitive athletics, and best of all, interesting and generous-hearted classmates. Our eldest son, Ben, enrolled in 10th grade at Riverside while Danny joined the 7th grade on the Zug Campus - and indeed, as we had hoped, their lives have been significantly transformed. In fact, the life of our entire family has been shaped by this unique experience of being in Europe, making time to travel and see the world, navigating our way solely by public transportation, and meeting new friends from all over. We feel grateful to ISZL, and in returning home to Minnesota we leave a piece of ourselves here. Our brief, but pivotal adventure will remain in our hearts and minds, having changed us all for the better. Thank you, ISZL, for having helped turn our dreams into reality.
"I
never thought that a gap year would be an option for me but when I came
across the idea of becoming a flight attendant and seeing the world, I
changed my mind. However, it took some time before I decide to defer my
entry to University and enter the working world. I graduated from
Riverside in June 2008 and in July I started a very intensive course
for a few weeks at Swiss International Air Lines learning everything
from mixing a screw driver to work the defibrillator. Since then, I
have been flying around Europe and now also to the rest of the
continents. So far, it has been a great experience full of ups and
downs. I’ve visited places that I never thought I would go to and I’m
going to some that I have dreamed of. I work with different people all
the time, with different backgrounds and ages. Sometimes it’s hard
work, long working hours and 50 flights in a month. Other times I get
paid for lying on the beach or laughing so hard in the galley that I
almost can’t breathe. It might seem like we flight attendants just push
the trolley back and forth, but there is so much more to it.
"I was at Riverside from 1993-1998. I feel very privileged to have been there in the earlier stages of the school, when it was still a very unique type of high school and community, where a single rule of respect seemed to suffice. I'm only realising now just how much that experience has impacted my attitude towards education and social interaction. I chose Keele University because of the dual honours system which allowed me to combine music with psychology. After receiving my BSc in 2001, I went straight on to graduate school at Harvard to specialise in ethnomusicology - a sort of "anthropology of music" which looks at music as an expression and mediator of culture and society. I received my PhD in June 2007 and was also awarded a Certificate in Latin American Studies from Harvard's David Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies."
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