Guests: Ariel Nicastro and Taylor Tims
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
Welcome back to Honors Spotlight, the podcast where we go beyond the GPA to explore the real stories behind MTSU’s Honors students. I’m your host Robin Lee, and today we’re taking things global. In this episode, we’re joined by two remarkable students, Ariel Nicastro and Taylor Tims, who each stepped far outside their comfort zones for transformative study abroad experiences. Ariel, a Buchanan Fellow and Gilman scholar, traveled north to Canada while Taylor, an anthropology major with a love for languages, ventured to Brazil. From new cultures and academic insights to personal growth and unexpected challenges, Ariel and Taylor open up about what it really means to study abroad and how those journeys change them in ways they never expected. Let’s go ahead and dive in.
Ariel Nicastro: Hi, my name is Ariel Nicastro, and I’m about to be a senior. As Robin said, I am a Buchanan Fellow and Gilman scholar, and I’ve had two MTSU Signature Study Abroad experiences while at MTSU. My first one in 2023 was a cross-cultural perspective in tourism and leisure course in New Zealand. I just got back from a religious diversity course in Toronto and Montreal, Canada.
Robin Lee: Awesome, and Taylor.
Taylor Tims: Hi. My name’s Taylor Tims. I am a Buchanan Transfer Fellow and an anthropology major. I’ve also had two MTSU study abroad experiences. Both have been to Brazil, specifically for archaeology.
Robin Lee: That is amazing. What drew you guys to those experiences or programs?
Ariel Nicastro: I’m a physics major, so since these two courses don’t align with my major, my main reason for studying abroad is that I truly want to explore new cultures and better understand the world. Truly, my motivation to study abroad was travel, but also meeting others and gaining deeper insight into the culture.
Taylor Tims: Mine was a very similar reason, specifically for archaeology. Anthropology is the study of human culture, so I wanted to expand my knowledge and go somewhere new and also get the fieldwork experience while I was there.
Prior to these experiences with MTSU, had either of you been outside of the US before or traveled a lot?
Taylor Tims: I had not.
Ariel Nicastro: I have. I do have family in Israel, and in high school I studied abroad for a year, but it got cut short by COVID, so I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house, getting immersed in the Hebrew language and culture outside of my school.
What was your first impression when you arrived in Brazil?
Taylor Tims: For me, as I said, it was my first time abroad, so I was just shell-shocked, just by the experience of being able to go somewhere brand new. I don’t think it hit me that I was in a whole other continent until a couple of days in. I was at the beach, and people around me were speaking Portuguese. I just felt like, oh, my God. I’m really here right now.
Robin Lee: You’ve been to Israel before, Ariel. Was Canada a little different? Were there similarities?
Ariel Nicastro: Yes, I think Canada felt we first landed in Toronto. Originally, it did feel like I was just traveling to another North American city, but that has its own special aspect because it just makes you more excited to experience a new location, and you know that it’s a new country so it’s really exciting and special to be able to dive into exactly what details make Canada and the culture different from the United States, but in New Zealand, I thought it was fantastic. To even hear a New Zealand accent, because I don’t think I have before, so it felt pretty different, even though they still spoke English there.
Robin Lee: Is it different from an Australian accent? Because that’s what I imagine.
Ariel Nicastro: Surprisingly, yes.
Since you guys have both now traveled through MTSU, do you guys have any advice regarding group travel through the University?
Taylor Tims: I would say make friends with the people you’re traveling with. I think you guys are all going through an experience together, and you may know some people going down like that, you’re going with or you may not, but if you guys can connect even a little, it makes it a lot easier.
Ariel Nicastro: I would agree with what Taylor said. I have had two study abroad experiences, with Canada being my second and most recent one. Getting to know the people better before traveling abroad, I feel like it was a much more comfortable experience because when you go abroad, it’s new for everybody, and I think that having some sense of comfort with your peers is very important.
Is there a specific, standout memory from either of your times abroad that you really just captured the essence of your whole experience?
Ariel Nicastro: When I was in Canada, we were doing religious site visits to many different religious locations, and the first location we went to was the Ganesh Hindu Temple in Toronto. I vividly remember this because we could not take pictures, and honestly, I wish I could just capture this memory in my head forever because it was jaw-dropping, with colors everywhere, and temples to all the Hindu deities. There was a service going on. We had music, bells, smoke, and the smell of incense, and it just filled all your senses. It was honestly jaw-dropping and gave me chills just to be in this location and learn about the culture.
Robin Lee: It sounds beautiful.
Taylor Tims: For me, I think when I went to Brazil, we spent some time in the city, but then we went into the Amazon Rain Forest for the actual archaeology excavation. The first night there, we sat around the pool with people from the States, Brazil, and France, and just all over, and none of us really knew the group as a whole, but we all got to talk about what we liked about archaeology. It was the first time that I had been around that many people who weren’t from the same backgrounds, but we all liked the same things. I thought that was a really cool moment. It wasn’t anything glamorous or anything, but getting to meet all those people.
Robin Lee: How did you guys get to engage with the local culture? Was there food, festivals, daily routines, or conversations with locals in general?
Ariel Nicastro: In the Canada program I was in, we definitely had these religious site visits that sometimes came with food, time to interact with at least one person from the site, and a Q&A forum after being shown around the temples we visited. For example, we had a visit to a Sikuda where we had a Langar meal, which is where they prepare very large portions, and you come up with a tray, and they give you food, and you all eat on the floor together. It’s a very neat experience, and we also got to witness a service that they had afterwards. I think that each religious site visit followed in this pattern, where we got to experience in tandem the food and services, and have these conversations with people.
Taylor, I just am imagining archaeology, like digging up bones and things like that, so what was your experience like?
Taylor Tims: I got to learn a lot about the culture that we were actually going to the excavation for beforehand by going to the museum. We worked with a museum in Brazil that also went to the dig site, so that helped engage the culture a lot, but we also went around to other botanical sites, and there’s a famous market in Brazil called Veropzo. It’s like one of the largest markets in the world. We were able to go there, and I think that was definitely a cultural immersion. For food, Ossie is really big down there, which is one of my favorite things, so I eat a lot of Ossie.
Was there anything that surprised you about how people lived or worked, or thought compared to the US?
Taylor Tims: I was very surprised by, we call it Brazilian time, but people in Brazil are a lot more nonchalant, but if you say you’re going to be there at 9:00, it’s like, 9:00 ish. I think all the Americans were very stressed out because we’re so used to everything being so scheduled. It was a lot calmer about it. If you’re late, we’re cool with that. It’s a little detail, but I’m a very scheduled person, so I was freaking out.
Robin Lee: I think that would stress me out a lot, too, because I like to be on time.
Ariel Nicastro: As for me, I think it was very interesting to learn about how Montreal is tied very closely to the history of the religion there. In addition, there are a lot of land acknowledgments, and so this was the first thing that we learned before we went to any site on the first day. It was the land acknowledgment. We acknowledge that we are studying on indigenous land, and I’ve noticed that in Canadian podcasts or perhaps even in museums, they will have land acknowledgments. I noticed this also at an Anglican church service we attended on our second day. The United States has a similar history as Canada, being in North America, being on indigenous land, but Canada is a lot more cognizant of it, I think, or at least in a spoken manner about it.
Robin Lee: I remember that lecture series. I don’t know if you were in that class when they were talking about it, but I remember that.
Ariel Nicastro: Yes.
How did your academic focus connect with your experience abroad? Did it reshape how you saw your field of study?
Taylor Tims: Being an anthropology major, obviously, the archaeology tied in very closely to my field of study, but being able to go to Brazil the first time really got me interested in anthropogenic soil, which is soil that has been altered by humanity over time, and that ended up being what I chose to focus on for my honors thesis so it had an impact on that, and that’s why I ended up going back to study it more.
Robin Lee: What are some ways that humans change soil? Just to elaborate a little more.
Taylor Tims: For example, in Brazil, it’s called Amazonian dark Earth. The soil in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon region, is very infertile because of the environment, so people like to burn things and, over time, make it richer and more usable for farming.
Robin Lee: I’m surprised to hear that it’s infertile because I think of Amazon, I think of all the trees and the rainforest, wow. That’s impressive, Taylor.
Ariel Nicastro: As for me, this is very interesting because I received a comment from one of my classmates while in Canada about halfway through that says, I’m very excited you’re going on this trip because you’re not a religious studies major or minor, and it was an interesting conversation after that because we were understanding that I came into this with a different perspective than the religious studies majors. As a physics major, I was learning about religious studies from a blank slate. I just wanted to learn more and approach it from perhaps a logical perspective and really find these common themes, differences between different cultures. And this was definitely shaping how I saw my field of study because I could relate to a lot of the religious studies majors, and they were trying to learn more about cultures, and perhaps science is not too different from that. We’re also trying to just learn more, and in my case, learn more about the world around me. I think that science perspective was very helpful.
Was there anything specific that you remember from there that you could take back and apply in your physics studies or even towards your thesis or anything like that?
Ariel Nicastro: In general, I do have a theme of cross-cultural collaboration. This is also with an interest in management, I think that this will be very helpful just for soft skills.
Were there any challenges, be it academic, cultural, or personal, that you all had to navigate either before you left or while you were there?
Taylor Tims: I think, for me, the biggest challenge was the language, because English is not the primary language in Brazil; it’s Portuguese. I spent some time working on it before I went down, but it was the first time I had been in a situation where the people around me were speaking an entirely different language, and I didn’t always know what they were saying.
Ariel Nicastro: I did have to write a pre-departure reflection on how I felt being abroad. This was, in fact, one of the questions. I think that coming into it with an open mind, I didn’t foresee any big challenges, but I was just hoping that people would be open-minded in return. Perhaps, coming from a Jewish and Israeli background, I wasn’t too sure how that would be received, but everybody was very accepting and just of anybody’s culture. It was very exciting; they put all of their backgrounds and beliefs aside and just went forward and learn about other religions together. I think that was very exciting.
Has your opportunities studying abroad changed you all, maybe not as a student, but as a person?
Ariel Nicastro: I think that I am much more well-rounded. I think when I first came to MTSU in general, I had that science brain, and I think that was about it, but thankfully with the Honors College and the study abroad experiences that aren’t related to my major, I was able to get a much more liberal arts and well-rounded mindset. I think that’s been really helpful in interacting with others and leading groups.
Taylor Tims: I think my study abroad experience made me a lot more confident and willing to travel. As I mentioned, it was my first time going abroad, and I was really nervous beforehand, but since then I’ve reached out. I’ve pursued internship opportunities in Norway and Tanzania, and I honestly don’t think I would have even considered those had I not done this experience first.
You guys both sound like you’re interested in continuing to travel abroad and just learn new things and experiences, whether with MTSU or not, right?
Ariel Nicastro: Yes.
Taylor Tims: Yes.
Robin Lee: That’s what it sounds like.
Taylor Tims: I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
What advice would you give to students who are on the fence about studying abroad?
Taylor Tims: I would say just do it, and I know that that’s basic advice, but I think it is an experience that you can go abroad, obviously when you leave college, but being able to go with a group and other people who have similar interests or even different interests than you really creates a very cultivating experience so, go for it.
Ariel Nicastro: I would agree. I think that the aspect of having these at least MTSU signature programs that I’ve gone on, having these trips mostly planned out, means that you can just experience the most that you can in the shortest amount of time that you’re given, and there’s something really special about that, especially being with another group of people. I would say that there are funding sources, if that is the point of concern.
What if people are struggling financially or don’t know if they’re going to be able to afford a study abroad trip?
Ariel Nicastro: Fantastic. My first trip to New Zealand was funded mainly by the Buchanan Fellowship funds. There are the Office of Study Abroad does offer smaller scholarships, such as the commitment scholarship for the first eight or sometimes ten students to go on the study abroad trip, and there’s also a media scholarship for one person per each signature program to do a creative project, which could be social media, art, or even an essay, perhaps, that’s more engaging than just an essay, on your experiences abroad. For my trip to Canada, I was funded by the Gilman scholarship, which is for students with Pell grants, and it comes with its own requirements of updating the Gilman scholarship when you’re abroad and doing a follow-on service project. I will be writing an article about my time in Canada for the Areté Honors College magazine.
Taylor Tims: My experience was very similar. I got the media scholarship to go down to Brazil. For that specific study abroad, and I also received a lot of funding from the Buchanan Fellowship funds. I had another experience where I secured professional development funding for another internship abroad, which helped a lot. There are other resources, even outside of the Honors College or education abroad, that you can look into depending on the circumstances of your study abroad experience.
What do you think if I was a student and I’m interested in studying abroad? Where should I start looking for funding, especially if I’m not a Buchanan fellow?
Taylor Tims: I would say probably start with the education abroad. They’re probably going to be very helpful. First of all, the resources that they offer, but then also being able to put you in contact with maybe outside resources as well.
Robin Lee: Excellent.
Ariel Nicastro: I know that for the religious studies people who went with me, there was a scholarship for them that pretty much covered all of their travels, and I would say, based on that, to look into any departmental scholarships, as well.
Taylor Tims: That’s really smart.
How have your study brought experiences influenced your goals, whether they’re academic, career-related, or personal, have they influenced your goals?
Taylor Tims: Yeah, definitely. I want to get my PhD in geoarchaeology, so being able to do an Honors thesis where I can actually go to a place and do research on a topic that could potentially be my research when I get my doctorate is really influential, especially as I’m still an undergrad, so that’s been a great experience.
Ariel Nicastro: As for me, perhaps the study abroad experiences have made me more confused about what I would like to do after I graduate, because I’ve had such a fantastic time that perhaps I am unsure if I just want to stay in a company to do science. I would love to stay within the STEM field, but I would like to expand its impact and include international cooperation as part of my career goals.
What do you see yourself doing? You said this was your senior year, so what do you see yourself doing after you graduate?
Ariel Nicastro: Well, I will definitely be applying to the Fulbright Scholarship. I’m considering a program in Germany to teach English. I do have prior German language experience.
Robin Lee: That would help.
Ariel Nicastro: Yes. I’ve never been to Europe before, so this would also be very exciting for me, but I do hope to continue this international collaboration. Perhaps international travel wouldn’t have to be part of my job, but I would definitely be very happy taking these lessons learned with me into any job that I end up in.
Robin Lee: Cool. Well, thank you, guys. Is there anything else you guys want to add about your study abroad experiences or MTSU in general while I have you here?
Ariel Nicastro: This was a life-changing and fantastic experience. Both programs that I went to. Once again, I do highly recommend taking a look at these programs.
Taylor Tims: Same. I think you can find something, no matter what your interests are. I think we both can speak on the fact that you can find something in your major or completely outside your major, and it will still be a revolutionary experience.