Like many of my friends and classmates at Whitman, I was a bit reluctant to go home for the summer. After finals culminated in the cathartic joy of Holi and other celebrations, I realized that I had grown...

At an internship working with abuse victims in the wealthiest county in the nation, I expected an abused population disproportionally representative of the large Latino minority and the few women of low socioeconomic status. Where does abuse fit in stereotypical "average American families," let alone in rich, gear-crazy, outdoorsy families?

I started my three-week exchange in French Polynesia with enthusiasm, excitement and an unhealthy amount of ignorance. Tahiti, and the rest of the Polynesian islands, were not given even a cursory glance in my high school history courses and had been relegated, in my mind, to that class of ridiculously photogenic, tourist-filled islands located far at sea.

Before I started my internship at Parenting Magazine's headquarters in Orlando, Fla., I imagined my experience would be like "The Devil Wears Prada." In my imagination, I was going to be like Anne Hathaway's...