Giovanni’s Spark

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In the fall of 2021, Tucson native Giovanni Rodriguez ’25 boarded a plane to Seoul, South Korea, on his way to what he calls “a life-changing experience.”

So life-changing, in fact, that he shifted his academic focus from pre-nursing to public health, and global health in particular. His newfound goal was helping communities around the world become healthier by improving their transportation systems, thereby reducing stress levels and pollution-related illness.

Giovanni’s journey came amid the coronavirus pandemic, which drove his courses online. He calls that a blessing; not being yoked to a classroom schedule gave him more time to explore South Korea. “Maybe I wanted to try the cafe down the road, or I wanted to go to a city that’s an hour or two away, and take my online class from there,” he says. “Myself and two friends actually went to Jeju Island, which is like the Hawaii of Seoul, and we stayed there for three weeks while doing our classes.”

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For a sophomore who’d never ventured far from home, it was profoundly mind-opening —which was precisely the goal. “I really wanted to experience something truly different, and to be as far away as possible,” he says. “I wanted to experience a culture that I knew nothing about.”

South Korea certainly fit the bill. Among its surprises were the obsessive cleanliness in public places and the value placed on neighborliness. “I found that their culture really resonated strongly with me,” he says. “It really gave me a new standard of living for myself.”

Another measure of success was how much he grew as a person. “This was my first experience away from my family, away from my parents, and out of that came a lot of independence, a lot of self-understanding and self-reflection,” he says. “I learned more about myself within those six months than I had in my previous 18 years.”