Study-Abroad Alumni: the letter of recommendation
Every fall brings former students back into contact with us, their old professors from the glorious time they had in our college classes. (We don’t hear from our alumni because they have sent us birthday greetings or get-well cards. And we don’t hear from them because they are bored.) We hear from them because they need letters of recommendation or because they are applying to graduate school.
The students who take our “normal” classes at home get timely and strong letters, of course, if such are deserved. And we all write many of these each fall, with our fingers crossed that our success-story students will continue to enjoy success. The alumni of our study-abroad program usually get very different letters. As professors, we call these “barn burner” letters. They are the ones we end by writing things like: “this student is THE ONE out of all of your applicants who you should hire today even if it means firing somebody else. This candidate is worth getting at all costs.”
Why so many barn burning letters for Catalyst and Village alumni? In short, because these are the students whose growth and change we have not just seen but actively helped to achieve. These are the students whom we have traveled all over Europe with, learning and talking all the while. Just as these are the students whose independent research projects we have helped develop and seen reach full fruition. We can say more about our study-abroad alumni, because we have seen these students do more, achieve more and risk more.
Our alumni are all over the world today. And many of them tell us each year that they got where they are now–more than anything else other than from their family support–because of what they saw, learned and did on our programs in Europe. So the letter requests will be coming in soon now, to all of us who teach on The Catalyst or The Village. Here’s hoping that the barn burner letters work this year like they have every other year. So that our British Studies alumni can continue the incredible march of success that has always been a hallmark of our terrific alumni. And let’s hope they learned well with us many things, including what The Clash meant when they insisted that Career Opportunities are the Ones that Never Knock!
