About to Set Foot in the Southern Hemisphere, Buenos Aires!

By Jiayi Zhang

Can’t believe the trip is happening in less than a week! I’m not the best at packing and tend to forget things sometimes, but I think everything will be fine. I’m super excited to step onto the southern part of the Earth for the first time!

I joined this class because I wanted to go to South America—and, of course, because I love visual storytelling as a journalism student. This is my first time taking this class and working on a journalism project abroad, so everything feels fresh and thrilling! It’s incredible to think that we’ll get to meet people in a country I’ve never been to and create stories with them.

I’m part of the music group, where we’re exploring the stories behind passionate and advocacy-driven musicians in Buenos Aires. We were lucky to connect with an amazing artist, and I can’t wait to meet her in person and go to her live shows! Plus, March 8th is International Women’s Day (what perfect timing!), so I’m looking forward to experiencing the celebrations firsthand.

As web developers on the interactive team, we’ve also been making progress on designing website wireframes and getting familiar with a new coding language. Last week, the whole class brainstormed ideas for the project name, and we narrowed it down to a couple—so we should have an official name soon!

Today in class, we’re prepping and packing up our gear, and on Thursday, we’ll be taking off from RDU on this exciting journey!