Zach Witten, 2008 Fellow (the first!!)
Zack Witten ’08 was selected as the first Brownstein Fellow.
“During my Brownstein Fellowship, I traveled to the swingy
state of Ohio, where I worked on a presidential campaign
registering newly voting-aged college freshmen. Best part: seeing how excited people were about getting to participate.
After that, I went to Shanghai to edit articles for a magazine.
Best part: playing Xiang Qi in the park with old Chinese guys.
Finally, went to Bolivia to teach English; the whole thing was such a highlight that it's hard to pick a best part, but I'll go with the wonderful chicken-and-platanos place my roommate and I used to eat at every night. Ask me when it's not dinnertime and I might give you a different answer.
“Since then, I majored in math at the University of Chicago, did a couple years of PhDing at Northwestern, and I'm currently on leave to work on a startup in Chicago. I wouldn't say the gap year transformed me into some kind of superhuman, but it definitely had some long-lasting benefits. Tangibly, the Spanish I learned in Bolivia helped me get into a Barcelona study abroad program at the University of Chicago, intangibly; it inspired me to want to study abroad there in the first place! I'm very grateful to the Brownstein Foundation for giving me this opportunity, and if you're reading this and thinking about applying, I'd say if it's something you're really excited to do, go for it!”
The abroad experiences were arranged through Project-Abroad. You can read about his travel here: http://zackwitten.livejournal.com/.
One of our particular favorite entries is his story about being a copy editor for a Chinese business newspaper. Enjoy his story here: http://zackwitten.livejournal.com/1273.html.