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This is the seventeenth article in Bears Doing Big Things, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni. Read last week’s article here.
After graduating from college, Christine Williams saved up money while working odd jobs, including a stint at Café Borrone, before spontaneously buying a large backpack and a one-way ticket to Mexico. “I had no idea what I was doing,” she said. “I just wanted to see the world. I’m not much of a planner when it comes to travel—I usually just go with the flow.” She ended up traveling around Mexico, then Guatemala, and then Nicaragua and Panama, embarking on what became an 8-year-long trip around the world. While exploring Central and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Australia, Williams stayed in hostels, hitchhiked, started her own marketing business and a successful travel blog, and met her current husband while working at a Peruvian nonprofit organization.
Williams’ adventurous spirit and passion for writing creative stories and understanding other people were nurtured by the courses she took at M-A, including Maria Angelone’s Creative Writing class and Jim MacKenzie’s Psychology class. She said, “Ms. Angelone was so cool—kind of funky and fun, a little younger than the other teachers at the time. I do a lot of creative writing for work, so I think that class kind of jump-started a passion in me to write stories and be creative. And psychology was super interesting—I now do a lot of content writing for brands and social media, so I have to get into the mind of the customer by thinking about what they need and want out of life.”
Outside of class, Williams enjoyed acting and film. She created a film club with a friend, studying films and filming scenes from movies, and performed in plays with the California Theatre Center.
After M-A, Williams attended UC Santa Barbara. She remembered, “College was super fun. I…
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