Sharon K. Sobotta is a freelance journalist, a world traveler, a dancer, the director of the women's resource center at Saint Mary's College of California and the founder of Intercultural Encounters. Inspired by her humble background as the product of a working class family in Wisconsin, Sharon truly believes that every individual has a teachable story. She started traveling the world when she was 17 years old, after receiving a scholarship from Kikkoman soysauce that enabled her to go to Japan. That trip led Sharon to learn Japanese, and caused her to develop an incurable desire to travel the world. Sharon is not your typical traveler. When Sharon travels, she lives among the locals, volunteers, studies and most importantly interviews and writes about the local population of her respective destination. In The Journey of Life: 100 Lessons from Around the World, Sharon shares some of the most profound pieces of insight and stories she has collected while interviewing people from every social status from around the world. In her role as the director of the Women's Resource Center at Saint Mary's College of California, she strives to inspire students to envision the world in a gender-inclusive, non-xenophobic manner. When Sharon is not writing, traveling or directing the Women's Resource Center, she can most often be found on the dance floor performing Bhangra, Middle Eastern, or Hula with her dance troupe.
In 2009 while Sharon works on her next edition called, "The Journey of Life: 100 Lessons from Off the Beaten Path," she is on a mission to engage as many people from around the world as possible with PROJECT: PUTTING THE LESSONS TO PRACTICE. Her goal is to get people to live their lives in a more meaningful manner in lieu of conventional New Year's resolutions.
