As a student at UNT, Joseph Campbell ('02) was always eager to learn, especially with one finance professor, Perinkolam ("Chandy") Chandrasekaran.
"He would talk about automation and personal finance and touch on how these things equate into your personal life, and he'd always let me walk him to his next class," Campbell, a business administration major, says. "I would have all these questions about what we were discussing. I was a curious student back then."
That curiosity led him to the study abroad programs and, after graduation, he continued visiting countries, including Malawi in Africa. He's been living in Australia for 13 years, where he has worked in sports administration, has co-written a film and delivered a TEDx talk.
"North Texas and college gave me a structure over what I know. I think creatively," he says. "I like having a daily job and enjoy doing the work that I do. But it was the writing and being able to make a movie with a friend and do a TEDx talk -- these sorts of things pad it out. My journey became filled with little side quests. It's quite fulfilling."
Campbell's first taste of world travel came at UNT, when he took a study abroad trip to Spain with Kellye Church, a former principal lecturer in Spanish. For five weeks, he explored Madrid and Valencia -- a stark change from Flower Mound, where he grew up.
"I thought Spain was beautiful -- just a completely different world," says Campbell, who minored in Spanish. "And when I got back, I definitely wanted to live abroad. I didn't know it was going to happen the way it did."
He signed up to go to Singapore in 2001, but the 9/11 terrorist attacks canceled the trip.
While working on a marketing class, he completed a project about Santiago, Chile, and he ended up moving there two weeks after graduation, serving as an account executive for a news service agency called Business News Americas for about a year.
He returned to the U.S., working as a personal trainer and in retail in Dallas and Los Angeles. Then he traveled to Malawi to work as a teacher trainer for the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH).
He often played pickup basketball games at UNT and ended up playing for the national basketball league in Malawi -- forming friendships and participating in exhibition matches against Zimbabwe.
He met his future wife, Sophie Wilson, at a party, and they ended up hanging out. She lived on the other side of the country, so he would take a bus, bicycle and taxi -- a trip that could take up to seven hours -- to see her.
His wife, a nurse, got a job in her native Australia, so they moved to Adelaide.
"I was getting offers to stay and coach and teach at an international school in Malawi. I had to make that choice 13 years ago. Love always wins out, right?"
Sports remain a deep-rooted part of his life.
In Australia, sports leagues are often run by communities instead of schools, and he helped run administrative aspects for a state sporting organization, Basketball South Australia and Trinity College's sports facility. He currently works as an executive assistant for the Department of Education in South Australia.
He continues to work on his professional development, adding certificates for topics such as data analytics. He even wrote the story that became the screenplay for the movie Doubting Thomas. He also delivered a TEDx talk on how to become an advocate.
"The geography changes, and that's what I enjoyed about learning and getting a marketing degree. It's always the message," he says. "I enjoy language. So, I learned enough in Malawi to engage -- not enough to be fluent, but just enough. And you know there's Aussie things. There's a lot of 'mates' that get thrown around. I get comfortable. I feel like if I'm there, I'm supposed to be there."
