Eckerd College Students: The culture shock of living abroad for a semester
One of the worst things that you can say to a future study abroad student is, “These will be the best months of your life!”
In the end it may be true, but it sets up an unrealistic expectation that every moment will be filled with friends, foreign wine and beautiful locations every weekend.
Those who have studied abroad may look back on their time as a flash of flights, elegant churches and days in the sun. As easy as it is to gloss over the difficult parts in retrospect, when you’re living in the moment, faced with a world in which everything is foreign, it’s important to acknowledge one of the realities of living abroad: culture shock.
– Amelie Brazelton. (2025). “Eckerd College Students: The culture shock of living abroad for a semester”, The Current
Olympian Ilona Maher’s influence on Eckerd women’s rugby
Famous for wearing red lipstick during matches, Maher has redefined what femininity looks like and presented a positive image to women everywhere. Thinking about this powerful figure in rugby, Triton Publications took questions to the Eckerd College rugby team, the Sirens. After a yoga session run by one of the members, the team talked about what Ilona’s influence meant to them.
“You can do anything you want as a woman and it doesn’t matter what you look like, it just matters that you put your mind to it,” said Riley Bloom, a senior communications major.
– Amelie Brazelton. (2025). “Olympian Ilona Maher’s influence on Eckerd women’s rugby”, The Current
What identity means for international students at Eckerd College
Tessa Orth-Moore, a visual arts and human development sophomore, grew up moving among African countries with an American passport. Her family’s African love story began when her dad joined the Peace Corps after college, where he spent two years in Senegal and upon his return to the U.S., fell in love with another Peace Corp fan, Orth-Moore’s mom.
After that, they were committed to helping people and living in service, working for Catholic Relief in Liberia, Togo and other countries. The youngest of four, Orth-Moore was born in Ghana and spent most of her life in Kenya, with a brief intermission to live in Maryland, U.S., during the pandemic and finishing her high school career in Ethiopia.
“I would consider myself American African, but it’s hard because I grew up with such privilege that I didn’t get to live the African experience. I lived the foreigner experience,” she said, reflecting on the joys of the “foreigner” lifestyle.
– Amelie Brazelton. (2023). “What identity means for international students at Eckerd College”, The Current
The Florida Wildlife Corridor is one of the conservation efforts that Florida has focused on recently. It encompasses 17.7 million acres of Florida, including 10 million in conservation lands. The other 7.7 million is made up of pastures and ranches that are maintained by ranchers that agree to specific guidelines that align with the Florida Wildlife Corridor’s conservation requirements. The connected land of the Florida Wildlife corridor sustains Florida’s resilience by improving species adaptive capacity, protecting land from being developed, and maintains Florida’s tourism economy by protecting natural resources.
Traditional concrete sea walls were designed for regular tides and limited force, not the intense waves and consistently high-water levels we have been seeing. These are essential as ocean water overtopping these barriers can cause sewer systems to flow into the surrounding ocean, damaging the ecosystems and natural life there. Flooded homes and damaged shores have become normalized as climate change has taken its toll
