Melissa Morgenstern: What Unemployment Taught Me

Eating stinky tofu midway through Taipei runs, wearing barefoot shoes at the Buenos Aires marathon, or suffering in the final miles of the Mount Fuji marathon. 5 Minervans chat with our host Jonathan about their running experiences in the rotation cities.

30 Touko 48min

David L. Marcus is known (mostly by himself) for his sense of humor. He traversed five continents as a journalist, author and education consultant, then became Minerva University’s Chief Communications Officer. As a newspaper bureau chief, Marcus lived for a decade in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, covering education, immigration and the environment. His team won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for investigating violence against women. He wrote two books about adolescents, "Acceptance" and "What It Takes to Pull Me Through." He earned his bachelor’s with honors at Brown University, where he was elected senior class president. Later, he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Now he hopes to be a stand-up comedian.

8 Touko 53min

Aboozar Hadavand is a professor of computational sciences at Minerva. He is an economist by training and loves statistics, mystery books, woodworking, and dad jokes.

29 Huhti 38min

Lui has truly lived several lives — from advocating for sex workers in Kolkata to road-tripping across Argentina for annual "women's encounters." Before all that, she tried her hand at advertising, but soon realized there were better protagonists than soap. She treasures her friends and thrives most when rallying alongside them to champion causes that move them.

19 Huhti 35min

Ba Thien (M24), a German-born Vietnamese dinosaur enthusiast, dreams of building Jurassic Park—minus the part where humans get eaten. Growing up with books like Rich Dad Poor Dad, he went from selling candy in his high school locker to selling bubble tea in Germany, now venturing into the AI startup space.

7 Maalis 35min

Emin is a geopolitics geek, chess enthusiast, and aspiring global security consultant. Driven by a passion for cultural immersion and seeking discomfort, he traveled the world finding many new homes and families that embraced him. His friends know him as the guy who knows everyone because of his exceptionally extroverted nature.

28 Helmi 48min

Adam Ajroudi, a Tunisian global citizen, photographer, and poet, navigates the world with an insatiable curiosity. He is majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Interdisciplinary Digital Practices. Adam's life purpose is bringing our world closer through meaningful cultural exchange programs online and in person.

3 Helmi 36min