Danella Newman (Austria/United States)
Danella was born in Graz, Austria and grew up bilingually with English and German as an Austrian-American dual citizen, spending every summer in Upstate New York with her family. At the age of 15, she spent a year in Peru as an exchange student, which is where her interest in languages, intercultural understanding and diplomacy grew. Later on, she did a teaching internship in Colombia with AIESEC, the second intercultural youth/student organization she volunteered for for several years besides AFS.
During her undergraduate studies, Danella pursued two bachelor’s degrees in Hispanic Philology (French minor) and Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology in Graz, Austria, spending an Erasmus semester, and her summers as an Au-pair, in different parts of Spain. Determined to combine her love of travelling with her interest in political, social and cultural sciences, she applied for MA Euroculture. A member of the 2015-2017 Euroculture cohort, Danella spent her first and last semester in Göttingen, her second in the beautiful city of Bilbao and her third (very unexpectedly!) by doing the research track in Pune, India. Passionate to further explore the fields of human rights and education, she made the most of this opportunity by interviewing more than 30 IT students and professors and researching how traditional gender roles are changing in information technology education in Pune and Graz for her MA thesis. Currently, she is living in Vienna and working as a trainee in the International Unit of the Austrian Ombudsman Board/General Secretariat of the International Ombudsman Institute.
Having been a part of the Euroculture-bubble was without a doubt a life-changing experience. It is only when you leave it after graduating that you realize how special it was to have been able to study, share with and learn from such an international and interdisciplinary range of people – students, coordinators, professors (and locals) – in three different countries in just two years. The mere fact that every Euroculture student ends up with a different academic path while still being part of the same program is amazing to me. The program encouraged us to focus on what we were most interested in while keeping an open mind for new perspectives (ex. Europe in the Wider World) and topics. This allowed for an enriching exchange of ideas. I am most grateful for how Euroculture pushed me out of my comfort zone (never thought I would live in India for a semester – an unforgettable experience), taught me to teach myself adaptability and to question everything I know, and facilitated the beginning of friendships bound to last a lifetime.