Meet Rachel!

Rachel is a 22 year old American from Washington, Missouri and most often found behind her camera lens!

She has experimented with various forms of higher education over the past several years — a traditional 4-year university, a community college, online classes — and has used that experience to truly determine how education best fits her needs.

Like many people, moving on campus to have the traditional American college experience wasn’t quite what she envisioned and she wasn’t challenged at the level she predicted she would be. The general requirements felt too repetitive of her high school studies and didn’t provide enough freedom and creativity. Though it was a hard personal decision to make, Rachel decided to try a new path and returned home to attend a community college.

This path led her to understand the necessity of general studies that lay the basic foundation for any degree; she was able to take a photography class in her final semester which helped her realized what college could be if she could get through the basics first.

She’s proud to have completed her Associate of Arts degree, and to have finally found the motivation to continue learning through alternative schooling. Ever since she went on a European trip at age 15 with an Education First program, she knew travel and education were meant to be combined and she sought out opportunities that led her to Edumadic.

“Language and culture have always intrigued me… being abroad and experiencing these different languages and cultures firsthand while I’m learning about them will better my understanding as opposed to reading about it in a text book — this program is a way to have all of those things!”

Rachel will be spending her time studying linguistics, and continuing her journey into photography with online classes in photojournalism, post-production and editing. She’s quickly learning the road to improvement could also be the ultimate career path.

“I follow several travel bloggers on social media and I feel like they are living out my dream…I would love to be able to travel and promote destinations and businesses by sharing what I experience — I truly believe photographs can change the way people think.”

Rachel couldn’t ask for better hands-on lessons in photography in our beautiful, inspiring locations, and you might even see some of her work pop up on the Edumadic Instagram!

You can follow Rachel on her personal Instagram at @rachl.jones and her photography Instagram at @the.snappingturtle