Long before starting up at Keloland, Dan Santella did not know what he wanted to do in life. However, his knack for writing, along with several key opportunities pointed toward a future in journalism.
Santella reflected on his start in journalism, admitting that, despite his tardy initiation, he always had been fond of writing. “No. I didn’t come into journalism until I was 27 [or] 28….But I was writing a lot for graduate school. [I] thought, ‘Well, I’m not bad at this, and I enjoy it. Maybe I can do this for a living,’” said Santella.
Moreover, he received various internships that affected his perspective as a journalist. “All [experiences] have [affected me]. I loved going to college in Washington D.C…Sioux Falls [is] very close to home, very close to my heart….I liked Omaha [and my] grad school, Creighton. Texas was so different; it was so far from here and in the desert…[It], in a lot of ways, felt like a foreign country….Living in Mexico for a year after college was impactful because it was so far out of my comfort zone….As far as favorite, I don’t know about favorite [place to live], but all of these places molded me into me. Especially Mexico….It put me out of my comfort zone. Not just speaking Spanish, dreaming in Spanish, thinking in Spanish, but [I was] in a desert surrounded by water on three sides. In a lot of the rooms, I was often one of the only males, I was the only white guy. That was very different and tremendously healthy,” said Santella.
Being bilingual and, more specifically, working in Mexico was a huge stepping stone in Santella’s career. He enjoyed it very much and emphasized the importance of becoming fully immersed into something in order to get the very most out of it. “I wanted to live in a Spanish-speaking country. I wanted to live where I’m ordering coffee, where I’m playing soccer, where I’m dreaming, where I’m buying a gatorade [and] hanging out in Spanish. I wanted to immerse myself in that totally. I studied abroad in Ecuador in the summer of 2006; that was just eight weeks. I wanted to do a deep dive time spent a year in a Spanish speaking country,” said Santella.
He spoke about his time spent teaching in Mexico and how he deeply cherished the opportunity. “The people[were my favorite part]. I was so spoiled because I taught a lot of adults and they wanted so badly to learn. Where I lived in the Cabo San Lucas area, 90% of the economy, 90 plus, is tourism, typically from English speaking countries. They needed to learn English…I was so spoiled because they would pay rapt attention to me,” said Santella.
