Sophia Hammond, a fourth-year student at Bowdoin College, interned at JICUF’s New York headquarters from June 1 to August 28. Sophia spent the fall term of 2025 at ICU as an exchange student and worked with each staff member on a variety of projects throughout the summer. She is now back in Maine and recently shared her experience with us.
It was a pleasure having you on our team, Sophia!

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As a kid, I often daydreamed about returning to Japan. I sat at home in a small, rural town in Northwest Tennessee and reminisced about hot summer days spent playing baseball in the park with my brothers and cousins, then cooling down with ice cream we bought from the nearby supermarket. I longed for the hours spent catching frogs, crawfish, and monarch butterflies when we visited my grandfather’s childhood home in the misty mountains of Yamagata prefecture. I missed the sweet taste of freshly picked cherries and how I could drape them atop my ears to look like shiny red earrings.

Despite how vivid these memories are and how deeply I’ve always longed to relive them, I never actually grew up in Japan. I was raised in the American South, surrounded by cornfields and the same familiar faces wherever I went; none of which looked like my own, though this never really bothered me. I didn’t leave my town often at all, but when I did, it was usually across the Pacific to the other side of the world. There, in Japan, we stayed with my grandparents at their condo in Machida and indulged in every second of our month-long trip to see our relatives. Like many children of immigrants who share a similar experience to my own, the distinct sensations, images, and people I associate with my parent’s homeland has profoundly shaped not only who I am today but also the path I have chosen to pursue in life.

Once I entered college, for example, the only thing I was sure of was that I wanted to study Japanese properly for the first time. As a heritage speaker, I could already understand a lot of the spoken language, but because I spent the majority of my life in the US and was illiterate in Japanese, my ability to communicate with my relatives had deteriorated over time to the point that I could barely string together even a simple sentence. So, once the opportunity to take Japanese courses opened up, I immediately registered for the beginner course. In my freshman year, I also became a member of my college’s Japanese culture club, which gave me a community of peers from diverse backgrounds who all shared a similar love for the language and culture.

The following year, I decided on being an International Relations and East Asian Studies double major, thus combining my interest in Japanese (and wider East Asian) culture with my passion for politics and public service. In addition, that same year, when most of my classmates were preparing to apply to their chosen study abroad programs, I was petitioning my school to allow me to study in Tokyo during the fall of my junior year. At first, proximity to my family and timing were my only two motivations for choosing International Christian University in Tokyo, but as I researched further into the institution, I became increasingly interested in the characteristics that set it apart from most other Japanese universities, namely its small liberal arts education, bilingual identity, and commitment to human rights and global peace-making. At the time, I had no idea a school like this even existed in Japan, which only fueled my curiosity and desire to attend.

After weeks of meetings, petition letters, and sign-offs from my advisors, I was finally approved to study abroad at ICU, making me the first student in my college’s history to do so. The six months of my life that I spent at ICU and as a counselor at an international camp in Yonezawa prior to that were transformative for me both personally and intellectually. My time at ICU was truly one of the happiest periods of my life. There, I found a community space in Japan that reflected my multicultural background and accepted it as normal. Outside of campus, I was forced to navigate unfamiliar cultural contexts alone, which pushed me to not only improve my Japanese but also to deepen and complicate my perception of the country and its people. Most of all, my time in Japan was pivotal in helping me discover my passion for international education and US-Japan exchange.

When I learned about JICUF, it felt like the perfect opportunity to further build on this passion and connect with other like-minded people who wish to make a positive impact on society, all while utilizing my bilingual language ability. I am fortunate to say that this past summer, I had the incredible opportunity to intern at JICUF’s office in New York City for three months. As soon as I joined the team, I quickly found that the largest benefit of working at a small organization like JICUF was the close relationships I was able to build with the other staff. Their incredible mentorship allowed me to take initiative, ask questions, and challenge myself with new projects whenever possible.

By far, however, the main focus of my internship this summer was preparing for JICUF’s Global Citizen Fellowship (GCF). After two and a half months of meticulous planning, I was eager to meet this year’s GCF cohort when they arrived in New York this past August. From the first day of the program, I was astounded by the students’ level of commitment, curiosity, and, above all, compassion. I quickly realized that no matter how much you prepare and plan for the worst-case scenario, an immersive learning program like GCF is only as impactful as the students choose to make it, and thankfully, this year’s cohort showed up every day eager to learn from each other, the staff, and the amazing New York-based professionals we met working across the social impact space.

After spending two weeks with the fellows and watching them learn to navigate the New York program together, it was very hard to say goodbye when I dropped them off at Penn Station on the last day of the program. That said, I also felt a deep sense of gratitude knowing that I will continue to watch them grow as they go on to generate positive change in the world around them. I am grateful to the amazing JICUF staff for supporting me this entire summer, both professionally and personally, and for making my internship an incredible experience. I would also like to thank the GCF fellows for teaching me so much and for the countless memories I will cherish for years to come. Though I still don’t know where my interests will take me after I graduate from university next May, if I learned anything from my summer at JICUF, it’s that I will continue to allow my personal experiences and love for connecting with people to guide where I go next.