Anna Phillips
Hello! I’m Anna Phillips, a senior in the WVU J-School. I’m studying Public Relations and Spanish and am planning to get a minor in French. I suppose one of the most basic qualities about me is the fact that I spend any extra money I have on any kind of traveling.
I’ll start off explaining a little about why this is. I was so lucky to grow up in the family I did. Since I was three years old, my parents had decided to host exchange students from all of the world. The recently hosted their thirteenth student. We’ve been lucky to meet some amazing people through these exchanges. Those students truly became brothers and sisters. (I do have one older biological brother, who lives in Boston with his wife.) Growing up with so many different cultures in the house was an experience I hope to share with anyone I can. Through my childhood, teen years and young adult years I was able to hear about countries like Germany, Italy, Egypt, Peru, Turkey, Spain, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, South Africa, China and a few others.
Through these students I loved, I understood the appreciation and respect for other cultures that have matured further in the past few years. It jump-started my passion of travel. I started out traveling in organized groups that my mother planned. We traveled to London and Paris in two weeks with very structured days and nights. It was a great way to start out traveling. Since, I have branched into my own traveling. I began visiting one of our former exchange students in Peru my senior of high school by myself. I started to become comfortable with traveling by myself. I went to Jamaica through a nonprofit service-learning organization called Amizade, which I now work for. I have studied abroad in Spain and while there found a great travel group and learned the art of back-packing. We traveling to Prague, Morocco and Roma with a backpack and few plans.
I’ve come to point in my traveling life, in which I love the unexpected experience. I’m ready for whatever comes our way and hopefully my spanish skills will come in handy.
