Meet Lydia Borrell ’24. Lydia is currently an English teaching assistant in a school in Martos, Spain through NALCAP, a fellowship program in Spain for US recent graduates to support schools and work with English teachers in K-12 educational settings there.
What keeps you busy these days? What are you doing for work and for play?
For work currently I am an auxiliar de conversación, or an English teaching assistant in a school in Martos, Spain. This job includes preparing activities in English and working with various classes and teachers in order to help students learn English. In my free time now I work on my Spanish skills and try to experience the culture of Jaen and the rest of Spain as much as I can. In Jaen I’ve had the opportunity to visit el Castillo de Santa Catalina and the Arab baths. I have also had the opportunity to connect with Spanish and international students from the nearby university of Jaen through craft and movie groups.
How did Augsburg shape your path?
I really appreciate that my classes at Augsburg explored various cultural perspectives. I found that this approach helped me to look at the world with an open mind and also further developed my interest in learning about other cultures. I found this to be especially true when I began taking Spanish classes during my second to last year at Augsburg. The collaborations between the music and Spanish departments, and the professors interest in what the students were doing in each department, really helped me to connect what I was learning in my music and Spanish classes to the real world. This also led me to start thinking about other ways that I could continue to apply the skills that I had learned in my classes to other areas outside of the classroom, and eventually led me to consider going abroad and using these skills there.
Who is an Auggie that inspires you or has impacted you and why?
My friend Amara Strande. She was a student at Augsburg in 2021 and 2022. I first met Amara as an acquaintance when we were in choir together in high school, and then again in 2021 when the two of us were in Augsburg Choir together. Amara also spent much of her time doing advocacy work for adolescent and young adult cancer patients, even when she knew that, as a cancer patient herself, she would not directly receive all of the benefits of her work. Amara even spent the last several months of her life speaking to state legislators, urging them to pass a piece of legislation that would ban all nonessential uses of PFAS, a chemical that has been linked to cancer, including high rates of cancer in her community. Amara’s dedication and commitment to serving her community inspires me and reminds me that we all have a responsibility to our communities, to look out for each other and help each other, even when it does not directly benefit us.
What’s a piece of advice that you would give to a current Auggie or young alumni?
Try to get something good out of the things that don’t go to plan. Challenging experiences can also be learning experiences when you work through them. If it wasn’t for challenges that made me feel like my world was ending a couple of years ago, I probably wouldn’t have considered the NALCAP program, or anything that would take me abroad, as a possibility.
Thank you, Lydia!
