More than 10,000 miles from home, eight Upper School (US) students snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef, rafted through the Tully River and connected with students from across the globe.

Through the US’s Round Square Club, the students traveled to Australia to attend the annual Round Square International Conference. After participating in pre-conference activities in Cairns, they traveled to Sydney to join more than 1,000 students from over 150 schools worldwide, where they exchanged cultural perspectives and discussed education and the environment.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Global Education Associate Alina Balseiro attended as a chaperone and said the goal of the experience was to challenge and expand the students’ worldviews.

“We had a lot of students who were quite shy on the trip at first, but they quickly developed into some outgoing students,” Mx. Balseiro said. “Seeing those levels of change and evolution within confidence and interest in getting to know new people and new experiences was really, really beautiful.”

For Marwa Benyounes ’28, the conference provided opportunities to form friendships with students from around the world.

“There were a lot of opportunities for programming for us to be able to just talk with people, and now, I have my South African friends, and my friends from Toronto,” she said. “We got to the conference and met all these people from all over the world and were able to see how these people were all the same age, and we were all so different, but we also had similarities.”

Gabe De Oliveira ’28 said the conference reshaped his perspective on life.

“It definitely gave me a broader view,” Gabe said. “If my view of life before was in the lens of a fish, now it’s in the lens of an eagle … It’s remarkable. I’ve met so many people; my views on art, sports, ways to communicate, ways to express emotions and ideas — they are all just diversified.”