Written by Becky Hudson for The Campus Voice, FSCJ's student-run online publication

Lynn Dollekamp is a 24-year-old international student, whom recently graduated from Florida State College at Jacksonville with a bachelor’s degree in Converged Communications. Dollekamp, born and raised in the Netherlands, is first born out of three children. She is an all-star athlete who was on the winning team of the European Softball Championships in Italy when she was 17. With the love from her devoted parents, Dollekamp went on to play for the Dutch National softball team where she was approached to play at FSCJ with a full scholarship. In 2012, after much consideration, Dollekamp traveled to Jacksonville, FL to attend school, work and play softball, with full support from her family back in the Netherlands.

"Playing softball in America has been one of my biggest dreams because softball, sports and athletics in general is a lot more popular in America. So I thought that this was the perfect opportunity to grow as a person and also as a softball player,” Dollekamp said.

A Whole New World…
Traveling so far from home to a new country, with no personal connections, had to be hard on Dollekamp. She admitted that the language barrier between herself and those around her was an obstacle to overcome. Dollekamp expressed having difficulty when writing papers for her classes because she “thought in Dutch and then translated to English.”

“It was really hard for me to adapt to the language when I first got to school here,” confessed Dollekamp. Although expressing to have trouble with the language barrier, her writing only showed a few grammar errors that, according to her professor Dr. Claire Rhodes, went away after time.

"Lynn is probably one of the best students at multi-tasking and time management. Not only was she always prepared, but she was kind of freakishly early about everything. There was not a large assignment that she did not send me a draft for at least like 3 weeks in advance…Lynn is terrific!” Rhodes said.

To read more, visit https://campusvoicefscj.com/2017/06/12/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-international-student/.