Earlier in the year, IU volleyball’s defensive specialist senior Courtney Harnish received an email about an opportunity called the Coach for College Program.
The program allowed student athletes to travel outside the country and work closely with children with the hope of motivating them to pursue a college education while also being active in sports.
For someone like Harnish, who said she knew from a young age she wanted to work with children, the opportunity seemed perfect.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Harnish said. “I really wanted to learn about how other countries worked, but I also wanted to make a difference in children’s lives.”
When Harnish stepped off the plane in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, she was overwhelmed with culture shock.
“It was very dirty, very busy with scooters racing everywhere,” Harnish said. “It was nothing like the cities we have, and it took me a couple days to get adjusted.”
Once acclimated to Vietnam, Harnish moved to a much smaller and more rural area of the country to begin teaching.
She would spend the next three weeks getting to know the other teachers, college students and children, an experience Harnish described as “life-changing.”
“It gave me a new perspective on life,” Harnish said. “All I knew was Indiana, and I went and saw how other people lived, functioned, and just the pure happiness taught me to be grateful. I saw the impact I could make and I thought I really could change lives and continue doing that with my career.”
Harnish said her experience reminded her how important it is to appreciate the opportunity she has to be an athlete.
“Here we’re surrounded by athletes, and you forget the platform you’re on,” Harnish said. “Over there, they looked at me like I was a god, and I remembered how powerful we are as athletes. You forget while you’re on the daily grind, and I learned not to take anything for granted.”
Once Harnish left Vietnam, she began to experience what she calls “Vietnam withdrawals.” She found herself missing the people she worked with and the culture she had grown to love during her time spent in Vietnam.
“I was so sad to leave and so grateful for the experience,” Harnish said. “You have to be yourself over there and you forget — here in the US — that the little things matter. The Vietnamese students and other college students didn’t have much or understand us, but they gave everything they could and supported us.”
Harnish said she wanted to continue making a difference outside the U.S. and her comfort zone by traveling back to Vietnam either with her family or as a director of the Coach for College Program.
“100 percent I would go back, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it,” Harnish said.
