Amanda Gastel
Amanda recently graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree in human development and education and a Certificate of Advanced Study in school counseling. She graduated magna cum laude from Colgate University in 2019 with degrees in psychology and French. She spent two years teaching at a bilingual French school in Massachusetts and has since worked as a middle school counselor and a high school college counselor. Amanda’s passion for Romance languages began at age 11 and she has pursued it ever since by studying, living, and traveling abroad. Amanda first learned Italian at the Dante Alighieri School in Tuscany and later retraced Galileo’s path through Italy with her professors. She spent another summer developing an English text by translating an 18th-century primary source document from French with the Colgate French department. Amanda studied French literature at the Université de Bourgogne in Dijon, and she has explored more than 30 countries—cooking, skiing, hiking, and immersing herself in every aspect of foreign cultures. Her enthusiasm for outdoor exploration has included backcountry backpacking, kayaking, and canoeing in more than 17 national parks in the United States and Canada. Amanda was the captain of the Colgate Women’s Squash team for two years and is also passionate about the culinary arts. She makes it her mission to learn new recipes and cook with locals in every country she visits. Amanda has led Putney programs in Switzerland, Italy, France, Holland, Greece, Alaska, Faroe Islands & Iceland, Morocco, and Hawaii.