Emily Paine Carter

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"Broaden your horizons." Some local students actually take those graduation speeches to heart -- by taking themselves to faraway places.

Each award-winning student has more feature-worthy experiences than I can crowbar into a column:

n Ellen Bowen (Salem High School 2004), daughter of Kathy and Jim Bowen, studied literature, printmaking, and the history and architecture of Bath, England, on her first trip overseas this past semester.

The rising William and Mary senior (business major, art minor) wrote that she had learned "how much more there is to discover about one's own culture by looking at it through the eyes of a person in a different culture."

n Gregory Minton, rising senior at California's Harvey Mudd College (math major), studied Dutch culture and language, American history, and Middle English language and literature at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

As an SHS student (2004 grad) he had spent two weeks in Moscow.

Traveling to 14 European countries last fall, Minton marveled at the prevalence of smoking and the "walkable" cities. And, despite our similarities, he cited Europeans' greater awareness of "things outside their own country" and their fluency in several languages ("to be fair, our country is bigger").

When parents Jan and Roland Minton visited, Jan noted Leiden's "trim and healthy-looking" citizens, thanks to bicycling.

n Steve and Nancy Agee's son Zach (SHS 2005) is well-traveled. Nancy e-mailed me from "an Alaskan mother/son adventure" that Zach has been to Europe six times.

The Bridgewater College rising junior and student leader is working on a triple major (finance, foreign policy and French), and will do an "immersion program" in France this summer with his dad. This fall he'll likely study French politics and history at France's University of Strasbourg, wrote Nancy.

She added that he studied foreign policy at American University this past semester, while interning with Sen. John Warner. He hopes to study next summer at the London School of Economics.

n Debbie and Jack Hughes' daughter Annie (SHS 2004), rising W&M senior (government major), studied international institutions and various French topics at the Sorbonne this past semester.

Annie had gone to Honduras for a Habitat for Humanity project last year, but this was her first time in Europe. She said she found travel "a bit more stressful than anticipated," but was "amazed [by] how friendly strangers can be sometimes."

By her mom's Easter visit she could impress her with getting-around-Paris skills.

Still, Annie said many 8-year-old French kids have a better grasp on English than she on French.

She discovered that "most people have something to say about America -- good and bad. ... That common sense gets you very far, a smiling face doesn't always do the trick, you can learn something from every person you meet, that the Eiffel Tower takes my breath away every time I get close to it, even if it's the third time in a week, and there's a little bakery around the corner from my apartment that has perfected the art of chocolate croissants."

May you also find such delights, such stretching, such continued learning wherever you land -- even if college is not in your plans. (Just be sure to come home.) I double-dog-dare you.

Emily Paine Carter's "The Front Porch" column appears regularly in the Salem edition of Neighbors.