Katia Griffin is a third-year Chemical Engineering student at UC San Diego studying at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. She grew up in Penn Valley, a rural town northwest of Lake Tahoe. Her parents volunteered for the Peace Corps in Russia before she was born, and, after her mother passed away, Katia wanted to continue her legacy of international work. During high school, she participated in a foreign exchange to South Australia for five months. She also journeyed to Croatia for a marine conservation excursion in 2021, where she was able to collect trash from the seafloor and make international friends. She is hoping to get involved in climate research while abroad in the Netherlands to further her goal of becoming a climate scientist. In Utrecht, Katia is living with ten roommates from all over the world: three other Americans, as well as Spanish, Turkish, Canadian, Irish, German, English, and French. She writes, “It has been so interesting to hear about each other’s culture, bond over being in a foreign place, and cook together.” Katia writes beautifully about her experiences abroad on her blog.