Director's Background & Inspiration

I was born in Chicago, but I was raised around the world. Family vacations and professional opportunities were always blended together, beginning with conferences and university research trips to far flung locales. It influenced how I thought about learning and being, because learning was something done beyond a desk, outside of a class - it was an active, living thing, and it never stopped. My parents were Professors teaching in the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University (top 10 University) and working on projects to do with the African Diaspora.  Two weeks in the Amazon or the pyramids at Giza was way more exciting than being at home, but it was also hard - you had to write grants and lectures and practice. Life abroad never just happened, you had to make it happen with the quality of your writing and presentation skills, with your reputation and adaptability. 
 

My sister (Lisa St. Aubin de Teran) loved the creative side of writing and became a bestselling novelist and travel writer, but for me it was a great hobby that later became a good business. My first piece was published in a peer-reviewed journal out of London when I was 17. It was a great boon for my college applications and other students took note asking me to review their work. Pretty soon I was tweaking the Resumes of friends, editing students' essays, and giving tips on how to punch-up their writing. My Personal Statement was so well received by the Liberal Arts Colleges I applied to that I got personal letters of commendation from several Admissions Committees and a "yes" from all five. (If you saw how low my SAT Math score was, you would know that writing is what got me in!)

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I started studying abroad at age 5, moving to Guadalajara, Mexico and going to a German private school for two years. I spent my formative years at Westtown School, the oldest co-educational boarding school for girls and boys in the USA, outside Philadelphia. I studied abroad again while at Westtown at age 16 in a 3-week, multi-stop, homestay program through Germany and Austria with 6 of my classmates. That prepared me to go further afield while an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. (Mount Holyoke is the oldest of the ‘Seven Sisters’ - the 7 sister schools of the once all-male Ivy League universities and a member of the esteemed 5-College Consortium with neighboring elite colleges and universities.) It was here at age 20 that I opted to spend my Junior year studying abroad at Beijing Foreign Studies University in Beijing, China (with the IES program). For as much as I had traveled with my parents, this was the furthest and longest I had ever gone alone out into the world.  It was an incredibly exciting experience to go from a small college town two hours outside of Boston to a world city with 11 Million people. A brown woman speaking Mandarin, Chinese at that time was rare, so I was often confused for a famous Brazilian volleyball player from the Olympics or Beyonce.  We would venture for weeks at a time into Tibet, or to see the Xi'an Terracotta Warriors, and I even survived my first Pandemic (SARS). 

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After College I went on to do a Master’s in Asian Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara (top 15 University). There I enjoyed a host of Teaching Assistant positions in courses like Pop Culture in Modern Japan and East Asian Civilizations. I then worked for 2 years in diplomatic affairs in Washington, DC on the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program via a public-private partnership in an Education NGO two blocks from the White House.  For my final educational flourish, I opted to do my second Master’s degree in International Museum Studies (essentially international arts management and collecting) in the UK or Europe. After being accepted to programs in England and Sweden I decided on Gothenburg University (top 5 university) in Sweden. I thought when else would I get to learn in English in a non-English speaking country? To get that degree cost me only 250 Swedish Krona and that included study trips to other parts of Sweden and Scotland.  Asia and Europe stole my heart and I vowed to stay abroad for the rest of my life.

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For the last 17 years I have done that, learning and working in wondrous cities throughout Europe and Asia: Gothenburg (1.8yrs), Vienna (4 months), London (2yrs), Singapore (6yrs), and Freiburg (7yrs). I have had a broad career, points where all I did was student coaching and others where consulting was part-time while I gained more exposure in the arts and business. These experiences have added value to what I offer students and that makes me smile, because a life-long learner I will always be! We all have one great ambition. For some it is to get to the top of that mountain - whatever that 'mountain' may be, and bring forth a stronger version of themselves in the process. To rise to those big life moments as they make their quest. My ambition to travel the world brought me to my soulmate, to have a family, to build a wonderful international career, and explore 75 countries. I chose to share this window into my background and inspirations because I live by what I advocate to others. I am a product of global learning at an elite level on three continents. One Ambition is my ode to that journey, a wondrous melting pot of lives lived expanding the horizons of young people.

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​​- Shantoba Eicke, MA, MSc

Director & Coach, One Ambition