Carlmont goes global

Calista Shohet

With the first semester completely online, many students took this opportunity to expand their knowledge beyond the classroom, attending virtual classes while traveling.

From Washington, Hawaii, and even Germany, Carlmont students are making the most out of this imperfect situation. Cori Nicolson, Polina Engovatov, and Keona Garza-Helmer have all been tackling junior year head on, all the while taking trips far away from their pre-pandemic realities.

When Garza-Helmer’s family got a call saying her grandmother would need surgery, they rushed off to Germany to be with her while she recovered. The Garza-Helmers stayed in Germany for a month, while Keona and her siblings attended school virtually the entire time.

Online learning allowed the Garza-Helmers to travel to the other side of the world and not miss a single day of school. However, this was not without its challenges.

Since Germany is 9 hours ahead of the United States, Keona’s synchronous classes occurred at night, keeping her awake until the early hours of the morning.

Her daily routine was swapped with that of most Carlmont students as she completed homework and other activities during the day, and started her school day around 5 p.m.

“I think it’s harder to manage homework because of the time change and jet lag. I tried to maintain a normal schedule, waking up late and eating breakfast before I started work, so I only had a few hours to do homework which was a challenge,” Garza-Helmer said.

Similarly, Nicolson also traveled to see family. Because her parents are divorced, she has been traveling to Washington in order to see her dad.

“My dad decided it’s too risky to rent a hotel room or something in California for the weekend and that flying up to his house gives me and my brother less exposure to people because airlines have been doing a good job managing COVID-19,” Nicholson said.

Although she’s only been going on weekends, she has expressed how virtual learning has helped her during this time.

“Online school has given me a lot more chances to travel because it’s online so I can basically do it wherever I have wifi which is pretty convenient,” Nicholson said.

While Garza-Helmer and Nicholson have both used online school to visit family, Engovatov’s family used distance learning as an opportunity to travel to a new place. For them, this meant two and a half months in Hawaii.

“We’ve always wanted to go away for a semester, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity,” said Engovatov.

Much like the Garza-Helmer’s Germany trip, Engovatov’s travels required her to adjust to school from afar. Between trying to make new friends, becoming immersed in the culture, and taking early morning classes because of the time zone, she has taken on these challenges in stride.

“It’s actually nice because my day is more balanced since I go to bed earlier, and my entire day is not focused around me going to bed around 2 a.m. finishing homework,” Engovatov said.

For them, traveling while having online school causes these trips to feel like less of a vacation, and more like merely a change of scenery.

“I’ve been really busy with school wherever I go so it’s hard to kind of enjoy it,” Nicholson said.

Despite this, all three students mentioned how this opportunity has helped them become immersed in the culture, rather than simply exploring as tourists.

Garza-Helmer said, “It was really interesting to see how different Germany is from California. I feel like I got a more immersive experience since I lived there for a while.”

Raina Lahiri

Polina Engovatov Hawaii, USA

Keona Garza-Helmer, Germany JANUARY 2021 HIGHLANDER 9