It Often Takes More than a Wing and a Prayer to Get to Juniata
By: John Wall Illustrations by: Laura Hess ’11
Way Off the Beaten Path
What a Long, Strange Trip
A few internationals end up at loose ends in far-flung cities, including: New York City. In the 1970s, a Nigerian international student arrived in New York and convinced a cabbie to drive him to Juniata. They pulled up at Founders Hall. “Terry Hartman, the provost at the time found about $50 and told the cabdriver, ‘That’s all we have,’” recalls Jim Lakso.
It always pays to be as clear as possible when making travel preparations. One freshman from China this year told his travel agent that he wanted to fly into State College, Pa. Imagine his confusion when he disembarked from his seemingly endless flight from Asia in College Station, Texas. “The student was not very well-versed in English, but the security folks in Texas were able to find his paperwork, which had our information on it,” recalls Kati Csoman, acting dean, international programs. “The airlines wanted to send him to Harrisburg, but we said no, that would mean even more travel, so they flew him to AltoonaMartinsburg airport and we picked him up.” The student spent less than a day in Texas.
A
trip to Juniata to start college can be as simple as a trip down I-99 from Altoona or it could be a fourhour marathon crammed in the backseat of a Toyota Camry with two siblings fighting over who gets your bedroom.
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communicate when and how to get here, wayward travel agents, out-of-date train schedules and a belief that Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are “close” to Huntingdon can sidetrack international students eager to begin their own education. Here’s a semi-scientific statistical breakdown of some of the numbers that go beyond the number of freshman international students on campus (28) and the number of countries they come from (27).
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Beginning the next phase of life is always an adventure, but for international students the journey to Juniata can be as seemingly endless as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Although the College goes out of its way to
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