Ian McDonald is a hipply dressed, 21-year-old Mt. Hood Community College student who, this last summer, got the chance of a lifetime to study abroad.

“I went to five countries during three weeks, got to know the different cultures,” he said. With extremely pronounced hand gestures, he lists off the countries like they are old news, mentioning that he visited Northern Ireland. “I didn’t see the tensions I expected to see there. It’s not so much that Protestants and Catholics are fighting; it’s more like the people just want their own country.”

McDonald is pursuing a history degree, and if you say the right thing, he’ll shoot off on a subject for a good chunk of time. He can explain in detail trans-Atlantic slavery and the 1981 riots in Liverpool. If you bring up the subject of music, however, you get a whole other side.

“The Clash is easily my favorite band. I like that musical era; The Ramones, and everything from that punk rock style, to rock ‘n’ roll, to reggae. I grew up on the British invasion bands, like The Beatles and The Kinks,” he continued. “I’m a big, big fan of Jimi Hendrix. When I was younger, my fascination with rock and roll had me take up the guitar, but I got side-tracked with some other things going on in my life and lost interest.”
As for heroes, McDonald thinks of Che Guevera as a mind to aspire to.

“I don’t like all of his ideologies,” said McDonald, “but he inspires me to not conform, to not always agree with society. He inspires me to be a better person. By far I’m not a communist, because I think that’s what he’s most commonly associated with; but I do think he is an interesting person.”

McDonald took the trip to England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium with the aid of TRiO student support services, which specifically helps low-income and disabled students. McDonald has Asperger’s syndrome, a learning disability that makes mathematics extremely difficult for him. But, with the help of TRiO, this disability has not kept him from pursuing higher education.

“I went with 16 or 17 other students from across the country. Students from the East Coast, Minnesota, California. We all had to go through an application process by writing an essay, which took me a day to write.” He laughs for a second. “I had to get a passport, and of course we had to do an interview. The other requirement was that I had to be at least a sophomore in college with a certain number of credits.”

McDonald says that there was more to the trip than just the education. “For the most part it was classroom learning and lectures.” He tried to look away to hide a smile. “But we had a lot of fun, too. I got intoxicated in a pub in Ireland. I drank too much, too quickly. A couple of the people in charge of our group escorted me out, and lead me back to my room.” The smile grew bigger. “I didn’t get violent or anything; an Irishman just gave me a little too much to drink. It was on him, so I had trouble resisting.”

He also had an adventure in Liverpool. “The second-to-last day of the trip, our group was talking about the Latin community there,” said McDonald. “They had a couple of people come in from the Salsa Club in Liverpool to teach us Salsa dancing. The last time I had Salsa-danced was in high school Spanish class, and it was unpleasant. There’s all that high school drama stuff. The girls wanted to dance with the popular guys, and I ended up being forced to dance with a girl that didn’t want to dance with me. So, in Liverpool, I didn’t want to repeat history. But then everyone was saying ‘Come on Ian, come on Ian, you’ve gotta do this man’, and I finally agreed. I got to dance with a girl I liked.”

He also saw a major difference in the schools and perception of alcohol. While in a teachers staff room in Liverpool, he found teachers doing something that would never happen here.

“After school is over, the faculty sits in there and drinks wine. Over there, they view alcohol in a very different way. It’s part of European culture.” He continued with the subject of Liverpool. “I learned some really interesting things about the place. During the American Civil War, Liverpool supported the confederacy. Before slavery was abolished, they even traded slaves with us.”

McDonald is fond of the memories he has, except for when he got back to the United States.

“Everyone just went their own way, back to whatever part of the country they came from.” He is happy to say, though, that he did get a few email addresses.

McDonald is now back at MHCC, and continuing his studies.

“I’m taking pre-requisite classes, math and some things for my history degree.” However, this isn’t the end of his overseas pursuits. He is attempting to get an internship to go back to Liverpool, where he wants to teach students about trans-Atlantic slavery. “There’s a lot of competition for the internship, but I have to try.”