Katie Sastre has a passion for travel.
The 20-year-old sophomore said part of her love of travel comes from her mother, who has been to more than 30 different countries. Sastre is an economics major, but it’s her minor in international development and humanitarian assistance that reflects what she wants to do with her future.
Sastre said she would like to work in international development or be an ambassador or Foreign Service Officer.
Humanitarian assistance involves going into countries after major disasters and providing basic needs, such as water and medical care, she said, but she is more interested in the international development part of her minor. This involves providing long-term infrastructure to help different countries.
“I have a big belief that I want to do stuff in the long term, not just go in and put a Band-Aid on the problem,” Sastre said.
Sastre said she learned the importance of issues like agricultural reform through the classes she’s taken for her minor. Her Comparative World Agriculture class showed her how important being able to feed a country was to economic development.
Sastre said in the future, she would like to work to help countries in either South America or Africa. South America because she said believes her Spanish-speaking abilities will be useful, and Africa because the region probably needs the most help in general.
Sastre said she would like to work for Chemonics, an international development company and hopes to be able to do an internship with the company before she graduates.
But that’s not the only reason Sastre wants to travel.
She said she also plans to study abroad in Turkey because she’s learned a lot of history about Istanbul, and she finds it interesting.
Sastre has also studied abroad once before in Spain, she said. She was in Madrid for 10 weeks.
“I wish I was still there,” she said. “I was not ready to come back.”
One major fear Sastre has when she travels is missing out on something while she’s in a different country because she only has a limited amount of time to do all the things she wants. She said she tries to plan but that sometimes things don’t always work out.
“Sometimes I think, ‘I was up till four in the morning, and I don’t feel like walking, so it’s going to be a beach day,’” she said.
In all of her travels, Sastre said she likes each country for different reasons.
“New Zealand’s geography was amazing,” Sastre said. “For history, [my favorite] would have to be somewhere in Spain.”
Another aspect of travel that Sastre enjoys is meeting different people.
“I learn a lot from other people about their life and perspective on other countries,” Sastre said.