I applied to a program in Valparaiso, Chile. It offered both Spanish and Sociology classes which is perfect because I just added my secondary Sociology major in the spring of my sophomore year and really need to play catch-up. While Argentina also offered these courses, the Valparaiso program cost less and sounded more colorful, interesting, and suitable for me.
Unfortunately, things took a turn after the long process of running around getting approval from this person and that person and after turning in this document and that document. I was accepted into the program, turned in my housing and course information, and paid what I needed to pay after my financial aid award. Then I began to hear of trouble brewing in Chile. Thanks to the weekly assignments in my Spanish Speaking World Prep program class (Spanish 394Pl) to read a Latin American newspaper story and write about it, I kept a close eye on Chile. With a slight increase in metro prices after an increase in electricity costs a month before, the country blew up in nationwide protests. After having a curfew, military supervision, and being put in a state of emergency for a week, I became quite worried as you could imagine. I contacted the IPO office as well as my program API and both insisted that the program would not be cancelled. However, news came that the protestors planned to continue until either a new constitution is created or until President Piñera is ousted. Based on this obvious sign that things were serious and not going to change any time soon and based on the fact that a great deal of public property had been destroyed by protestors, I pushed my study abroad program to give me an alternative option. My choices were San Jose, Costa Rica or Mendoza, Argentina. Costa Rica was the obvious choice because it was cheaper than Chile and would make it easier for me to visit friends who lived in central America.
This meant that I had to reobtain ICAF forms from my advisors, receive university approval a second time, and make sure to receive a new acceptance letter so that UMass would not charge me for canceling my Spring housing. It took about 2 weeks for API to transfer my account and documents from the Chile program to the Costa Rica program but luckily by November 26th everything was finally turned in. My advice for anyone is that if you have to push too much for something to happen, it most likely is not the right decision. I switched to Costa Rica and found so many benefits, I would start and return to the US earlier and be able to find a good summer job rather than returning by end of June and I would save money and be closer to my friend from Central America. The universe has a funny way of guiding us in the right direction.