(Belated) Third Year in Review: Walla Walla… and Beyond!

Unless you’ve been following along with the Whittie Wisdom blogs for quite some time, you might have missed my first and second “Year in Review” blogs. You might be thinking, “But Zoe, why are you writing your third ‘Year in Review’ post in the middle of the fall semester of your fourth year at Whitman?” And that is an excellent question!

You see, I wasn’t in Walla Walla last May to write the third installment of the series. In fact, I wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. Instead, I was finding myself while studying abroad in Peru! All thanks to the support from the Off-Campus Studies office. Now, I’m back in Walla Walla and more ready than ever to tell you about my junior year at (and away from) Whitman.

I’ll be honest, junior year is tough! Life comes at you fast, and in the fall the combination of working, preparing for my semester abroad and taking higher-level classes was an adjustment. But I wouldn’t trade it for the world. My memories from last fall are just as beloved as my memories from my spring abroad. I loved my time as the resident advisor (RA) of the Writing House, the songs I played on my KWCW radio show and the hours I spent watching stand-up comedy in Kimball Theatre during screenings for—in my opinion—my hardest and most rewarding class of the semester, Standing Up: Constructing Identity in Contemporary Comedy Performance.

As for my time abroad, I joined distinguished OCS alums like Salma Anguiano ’22 and Juan Pablo Liendo ’21 who studied abroad at some point during their time at Whitman. I studied on a program called SIT Peru: Indigenous Peoples and Globalization which was based in the city of Cusco—the old capital of the Inca empire! I was the only Whitman student in my program, but I quickly bonded with the 17 other students from far-flung colleges across America.

While in Peru, I met so many amazing people, from my beloved host families to members of the Indigenous communities we were graciously allowed to visit. I also got to visit places I’d only dreamed of—from one of the seven world wonders, Machupicchu, to the largest tropical rainforest in the world, the Amazon Rainforest. I got to visit the floating reed islands of the Uros people on Lake Titicaca, ride a mule up to Humantay Lake and witness the procession of the Señor de los Temblores, the Lord of Earthquakes, during holy week. Above all else, I learned so much about myself and my place in the world. It is truly impossible to put into words what the experience meant to me.

My junior year is something I won’t soon forget, even though thesis and graduation prep might bury me. Every time I get overwhelmed with the realities of being a senior in college (I have to be an actual adult after graduation?), I find myself looking back through my pictures or texting the program group chat. Occasionally, I forget that sending a text at 9 p.m. in Walla Walla means some of my friends receive that text at midnight in New York City. Oops!

Zoe Perkins ’25 is a senior Rhetoric, Writing and Public Discourse major from Hillsboro, Oregon. During her time in Peru, Zoe ate all sorts of new food, but the strangest was definitely cuy, aka guinea pig!