Gustavus Adolphus College senior elementary education major Daniel Venn has had a rewarding last 15 months. Venn decided to push back his anticipated graduation date from Gustavus by a year in order teach English to students in South America. Venn’s experiences were chronicled on the Gustavus website in October of 2013.
Venn was recently featured by the Mankato Free Press and reporter Jessica Bies after being named one of the most influential college students in the United States by the website degreesource.com. Here is an excerpt from Bies’ story:
A Gustavus Adolphus College student was recently named one of the top 11 most influential college students in the U.S., singled out for volunteer work undertaken during what would have been his final year as a Gustie.
Daniel Venn, from Cannon Falls, spent the summer of 2013 working in an elementary school in Riobamba, Ecuador, teaching students as well as planning and implementing an English-intensive summer camp for young children.
Instead of returning to college in the fall, he moved to the Galapagos Islands, recognizing a need for the students there to learn English, especially if they wanted to become a part of the islands’ tourism-driven economy.
Venn spent the fall semester on San Cristobal Island, teaching in a local high school during the day and offering free English lessons for adults at night. In January, he moved to Peru, where he joined with a group of Gustavus students working to provide both health care and education to citizens of the impoverished community of Chimbote.
You can read the entire article on the Mankato Free Press website.
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