Rebecca Geraghty’s experiences within NYU’s global network—summer programs in Madrid and Dublin and a semester in Buenos Aires—have tied together her majors in both history and Spanish with her minor in Irish studies, fueling her research.
Rebecca says, “I had always wanted to live in Madrid, so the summer program seemed the obvious choice for where I should go abroad, to fulfill requirements for my major while gaining fluency.” When NYU opened a site in Buenos Aires, Rebecca hit upon a way to integrate all of her interests. She applied for and received a Dean’s Undergraduate Research grant to expand her research while abroad. She says, “I was interested in the parallels of Buenos Aires to New York in terms of the heavy immigration both sustained in the 19th century. I used my time abroad to conduct firsthand research about Irish immigration to Argentina. When I immersed myself in the community, I was regaled with stories and given books and photos to take with me.” This form of on-site research was a different experience for Rebecca, as she was able to compare her archival findings to the oral histories she collected.
Through the summer program in Dublin, she continued her research on immigration, all of which now forms the foundation of her senior honors thesis, which she will present at a conference on campus in New York. She says, “I love New York, but my mental map of what constitutes ‘home’ has extended to include other places in the world.”
