There is a moment in my undergraduate career that burns brighter in my memory than any other.

It is January 2006, and I am a participant in GCA seminar 10 in Salzburg. Nearing the end of my week at Schloss Leopoldskron, I am sitting at a desk in the Max Reinhardt Library that looks out to the lake below and, beyond that, to the Untersberg silhouetted by moonlight. I know my fellow students are gathering in the bierstube to close the day’s work, but I have a stack of books on Kosovo at my side and a computer in front of me, and I can’t seem to pull myself away from either.

Four days earlier, I had never heard of Kosovo. The land, the people, the history: I was ignorant of it all. I certainly couldn’t place it on a map. Yet here I was, pouring over details of a war that took place 5,000 miles from my home in western North Carolina just a few years prior. It wasn’t just that I was preparing to represent the Open Society Foundation in a Kosovo Conflict simulation that would take place the following morning, the culminating activity of our GCA Seminar – although that was certainly part of it – but there was something more that kept me reading and writing in the library so late into the evening.

The more time I spent under that window in the Schloss library, the more I reflected on my learnings from the week: understanding what is means to be a global citizen from Jochen Friend and David Goldman; challenging my narrow perspective of the United States’ position in the world from Reinhold Wagnleitner; seeing multiculturalism and diversity as normality from Bernd Baumgartl; and understanding the complex challenges of diplomacy and civilian support in times of conflict from Michael Daxner and Tom Koenigs.

I was burning the midnight oil in the library that evening, but not only because I wanted to be a good student. I was there because I suddenly saw my position in the world inextricably linked to the Kosovo conflict. My words and actions mattered, and the simulation the next day would be a debut of sorts to prove to myself that this was indeed the case.

For the first time in my life, I saw myself as a global citizen.

I carried this realization back with me to Brevard College, where the benefits of a liberal arts education finally became clear, and I increased my course load for my final two semesters to dive into subject areas well outside of my English major. When presented with new material in these courses I repeated the same questions to myself: what are the global implications of this content? How does it manifest locally? What is my role in all of this?

It is no exaggeration to say that my experience as a student in the GCA opened a world of possibility for me and paved the path for my future. A first generation college student who had never carried a passport before the GCA, I boarded a plane to Austria ten days after graduation for an internship at the Salzburg Global Seminar, which turned into various roles with both Salzburg Global and the GCA, and eventually led to a career in international education during which, for nearly two decades, I have lived, worked and studied in Europe and Latin America, gaining proficiency in another language, finding joy in the complexities of cultural immersion, and acting within my sphere of influence to make positive change in my community as a global citizen.

I am eternally grateful for my time as a student and collaborator with the GCA, and I send a heartfelt congratulations on the organization’s twentieth anniversary. I look forward to the next twenty years, during which the GCA will undoubtedly continue to change the lives of people like me.

Adam participated in the program in 2006 as a student of Brevard College. He is currently Director of Strategic Enrollment, New Summit Academy, Costa Rica.