On Wednesday, October 23, NDA juniors in IB Global Politics and IB Business Management hopped on a four-and-a-half-hour train ride to New York City. These past few weeks in class, we have been learning about the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange. 22 other girls and I had an amazing experiencing learning about stocks, NY history, and the UN.  

Once we got into the city around 10:30 on Wednesday morning, we dropped off our bags at the Stewart Hotel and headed on with our 18-hour day, (that is however if you woke up at 4:00 am like I did). On our way to the UN, we stopped for lunch at the Open Kitchen on East 33rd St. At 1:00 we took a tour of the UN which was packed with tons of information about their whole system, branches of the UN, and got to see a look inside the meeting chambers. After our tour, we walked across the street to meet Sister Amarachi Grace Ezeonu who has been with the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur since 1986. Sr Amarachi is from Nigeria and has served mentally and physically challenged girls while working with the UN in research in studies for women’s rights and education for girls. After she gave us her wonderful presentation, we walked to dinner and stopped in Times Square. At 7:00 pm, we went to see the Broadway musical “Come from Away”, which is about the days following the 9/11 attacks. This play was very educational because it showed another side of the story no one really hears about.  

The next day, we took the subway to Wall Street where we took a tour starting where Broad St. met Wall St. We all expected it to be confusing, but it was actually a very educational and interesting experience. Our trip came to an end and we got on the train back to South Station. Overall, I would definitely recommend going on this trip because it was a good learning experience and a fun trip for bonding!  

I asked some students what their favorite part of the trip was: 

Elizabeth Brown ’21: “My favorite part of the trip was the musical that I expected to be boring, but was really good.” 

Erin Leone ’21: “My favorite part was visiting the United Nations!! I want to be involved there in the future and it was really awesome to have an experience that not many people get. It made me feel very important as a citizen of the world and gave me a whole new perspective of what goes on to maintain peace in our world. Working at the UN is a huge commitment, which I didn’t realize before, and just standing in the chambers that the delegates and world leaders meet in gave me a sense of what a big responsibility world peace and security really is. 

Lily Snape ’21: “The UN because it was so cool to actually be in the assembly rooms under their influence.” 

Leah Boyd ’21: “My favorite part was the Wall Street tour.” 

Mairead Dokurno ’21: “My favorite part of the trip was the Wall Street tour because I loved the history aspect of it and the guide made it fun and interesting.”