U Magazine

When Nanthia Suthana, PhD ’09 (FEL ’12), was an undergrad at UCLA, she took a year off from school to travel through Europe and try to make sense of the rest of her life. “There I was, a 19-year-old well out of her comfort zone and in a new and strange cultural world,” she says. “As I traveled to other countries, the language barrier added to a profound sense of dislocation. I can still vividly picture myself getting off of a plane and walking around the streets of each new city, trying to remember where I am and figure out where I’m going.”