Nepal

From Putney student to leader and educator

As Putney Student Travel celebrates 75 years, we’re sharing stories from alumni whose experiences continue to shape how they move through the world. Allyson Doolittle, a 2018 Putney alum, first traveled on a Putney Student Travel program to Nepal through our former collaboration with National Geographic. She later returned as a leader, and today she’s an high school environmental science teacher, still drawing on what she learned as a student.

What stays with her most is the community her group built during their time in Nepal.

“My group in particular was very close with each other,” Allyson says. “We would get in trouble staying up later past our bedtime, just because we would be talking about stories from where we come from and what our lives were like back at home.”

Those conversations, especially with a close friend from Pakistan, broadened her perspective in lasting ways.

One of her leaders also left a strong impression, modeling a life that combined travel, relationships, and meaningful work.

“I remember very distinctly asking her on the bus going up into the mountains, ‘How did you get a job where you can travel all the time?’” Allyson recalls. She carried that advice with her through college and eventually returned to Putney as a leader herself.

Coming back, she brought her student experience with her.

“My advice for everybody is always just to meet or talk to people that you wouldn’t initially talk to back at home,” she says. “I definitely spoke to people that I wouldn’t have gravitated towards on my program…and then we became like a little family.”

Today, she sees those Putney experiences reflected in her work.

“It’s really cool the stuff I can kind of pull from that, especially within my teaching… It’s made me more understanding and able to communicate that understanding to other people — especially kids that are growing up into a world where they might not be super understanding of other people.”

Her advice to future Putney students and leaders is simple:

“Be open towards understanding not only the students that you’re going to come across, but the staff members that you’re going to come across… the knowledge that they bring and the perspective that they have will bring a whole different unique aspect that is meaningful for the group as a whole.”

>> Click here to explore Putney’s Nepal program