The past four weeks have been better than I ever could have expected; to be perfectly honest, I was not entirely on board with doing this program initially. I did think that it would be interesting, but I have always been an underachiever in school, and while I did want to change my habits as…

Through this entire fellowship, I have never once felt unsure about a company until now. In every single case, I have had a definitive view about my experience at the firm; I loved Google in Pittsburgh, thought that I could never work at Ernst & Young, was inspired by Everyday Cafe, and so on.  Airbnb,…

The Dublin Botanical Gardens are an exceptionally beautiful sight, though I can not say that I am a huge fan of gardens generally. The Dublin Botanical Gardens are diverse, full of life, and are definitely sights worth seeing, but there is something about how tame nature seems in gardens that is off-putting to me; I would much…

To be perfectly honest, I can not stand modern art. I am sick of fake intellectuals folding linens and calling it art; folding bed sheets does not signify anything, please stop. In all seriousness, I really do not think that the Irish Museum of Modern Art gave me any information about Irish culture, nor do…

Today’s visits to Glendalough and Kilkenny continued to reinforce the a lot of the things that I have said about tourism in Ireland thus far: I am surprised by the large number of Irish versus the small number of international guests, I am amazed at the way that the tours seem to always come back…

Ireland is not even vaguely what I expected it to be, though admittedly, my I did not have many expectations; I intentionally avoided learning about Irish culture for the most part before coming here in hopes that I could simply experience it in a very profound, shocking way. While I certainly did not expect Ireland…

Today was the first day of studying abroad where I really feel that I have learned nothing new, which is fine by the way, though I did process a bit more about the implications of tourism on communities.. After a visit to the village of Howth that involved more shopping in an open market, eating…

Until today, I had not seen an inch of the Irish countryside even from the road. My first reaction was actually fairly underwhelming: this is just Tennessee with fewer mountains and a coastline. In fairness, I did still think that Ireland was beautiful, it was just beautiful in a way that was very familiar to…