¡Hola queridos!

Writing here as a student involved in the Integrative Experience/Spanish & Portuguese studies here at UMass Amherst to bring you up to speed on what I have personally been doing over the past few months with my studies, travel, service learning, etc! I hope this post helps give SPANPORT students interested in Study Abroad/Service Learning helpful information as well as some ideas/suggestions about the opportunities that are available to them if they are looking to get more involved. If anything I talk about in this post about interests you please do not hesitate to email me with questions. My information is on the bottom of this page. I love the Spanish & Portuguese Department here at UMass so I would be more than happy to help others take advantage of as many opportunities as possible here.

*** SALAMANCA, SPAIN – Study Abroad July 1-31, 2013 – the time of my life. ***
I recently just got back from Salamanca, Spain, where I spent the month of July taking upper level courses for my major at Colegio Hispano Continental. This program is a short, 4 week way to get 6-9 UMass credits extremely fast, so if you are interested in studying abroad but not for a semester long program, perhaps Salamanca is for you. The time I spent in Salamanca was unbelievable. I simply cannot put into words how much I fell in love with the old medieval city, the beautiful cathedrals, the people, the scenery, the music, and the nightlife – it was simply the happiest and most exciting month of my life. Maybe it was because this was my first trip to Spain and I had never experienced the beauty of the country, I am not sure, but my trip was amazing. I will never forget it and felt such a strong love for the city that I know I will be going back almost as soon as I possibly can after I graduate. There are some great features of this trip that are unique to this program that make it attractive which I feel the need to go into detail about so you know how awesome this program is:

1. You can receive 6-9 credits in a month which is super fast. Personally I think anyone majoring in Spanish should study for a lot longer abroad because you will get more out of the experience and it will FLY by for you, a month is nothing, but if it is your only option to go for a month, you still NEED to go. It will change your life, trust me. I only went for a month because I am a student athlete and didn’t have the option to miss a semester, but I still was able to complete my training for the women’s ice hockey team and participate in this program. And if you are a PROGRAM B student taking SPAN 110, 120, and 230 abroad, you can earn 9 credits for the same price as everyone else…that evens out to paying almost the same amount for taking those credits at UMass as you would in Spain and you get to do it in a foreign country.
   
2. ANYONE can go. ANYONE. You can participate in this program as a major student, a minor student, an elective student, or someone traveling to fill their GenEd language requirement. There are literally classes available for beginner language students and students finishing up their major, you can take whatever you want! LIT, CULTURE, LANGUAGE, CINE, and GRAMÁTICA are all options.
3. DIVERSE GROUP – I had friends on the trip that had walked at graduation in the spring but couldn’t receive their diplomas until they took their 6 credit foreign language requirement, so they did it in Spain. I had friends on the trip that were completing their majors, starting their minors, as well as just going to do something fun for the summer to learn a new language. There was a student from UConn, a student from Roanoke, URI students, and a student from Loyola on the trip. There was a mother of two kids, a member of the UMass ROTC Minuteman battalion, a Umass nurse, several Greek life members, a Umass track and field jumper, as well as many other different people on our trip. The age range was mostly 19-20, mostly sophomores and juniors going, but there were also people ranging from 25-30 on the trip. Its a total mix and thats what made it fun and special.
4. EXCURSIONS – INCLUDED. There are awesome excursions to Lisbon (PORT), MADRID, OBIDOS (PORT),  Granada, and Segovia in the trip. Buses to places are early and it will hurt to get out of bed at 7am on a Saturday morning to take a 6 hour bus to Granada, but it will be worth it when you get to the Alhambra. You’re in Spain so you need to use every second of every day to the fullest extent so do not waste it sleeping and missing out.
5.  SALAMANCA – a variety of things to do. There are so many beautiful paths and places to go for walks and get lost intentionally around Salamanca it is crazy. After classes we often went to local pools which were about 2 football fields long each, served food/drink all day, and cost about 2 euro to get in/1 euro each way on the bus to get there. A lot of us joined the gym next to our Residencia too for only 21 euro for the entire month we were away. Some of us organized a trip on our last day in Salamanca to LA HUERTA, a little ranch/countryside place which was a half hour away from our school where we rode horses through rivers/mountains in the countryside – unreal. And some others went back to Portugal for a day to Averio which is supposed to be like the Venice of Portugal. They went on gondola boats and everything and had an awesome time. There are about 100+ bars, discos, and restaurants around so you will never be bored.
6. LONGER PRORAM NEXT YEAR? And not sure if I am supposed to say this or not but rumor has it that next year this program may run for 5 weeks instead of 4, with a week of that time spent in Barcelona and a few nights in Madrid so look into that! We never stayed overnight in Madrid which is something I wish we did, so next year could be even better.
7. ORGANIZATION – Carole Cloutier runs the program and is really organized so you always are getting the most out of your dollar spent to participate in the program. She pours her soul into this trip so appreciate her, she will be your mom for the month you are abroad. She is a queen and she’s pretty famous in Salamanca for having run the trip for so many years so she hooks it up for u and will take you to awesome places. We met the mayor of Salamanca and got to take pictures up on the balcony of the Plaza Mayor, as well as many other opportunities because of her. You have a TA if you will abroad with you who looks out for the students and acts as Carole’s assistant, and you can go to them for anything. We had an awesome grad student named Lucia who was totally sweet and a fantastic addition to the group. You will get really close with everyone on the trip as well as Carole & your Lucia (someone else next year) so cherish your time abroad while you can. They work really hard so your trip is awesome so make sure to thank them for all they do!
8. Money isn’t too bad – The program costs $3,600 in total without flight so add on about $1200 for that. $4800 sounds like a lot of money but not for what you get. You pay a  $500 deposit in the fall so it feels actually like $3000 and flight. The money covers all your meals in the residence (3 per day on set hours), your room (all singles with your own bathroom, towels, bedding, and balcony), travel (buses from airport both ways, buses to all excursions, all hotel rooms for trips *shared doubles, only time u have a roommate, and the hotels are 5 star*, as well as some meals on excursions. Financial aid and scholarships are both available if you apply on time. The only thing you need spending money for is partying, souvenirs, 50 euro for books, and eating out, so in reality you could survive on extremely little there. Tipping is unheard of pretty much in Spain and food/drink is very, very cheap in Salamanca. Bigger cities like Lisbon and Madrid, expect to spend a few more euro for that cerveza or sangria, but in Salamanca nothing is more than 2 euros. You can have an amazing night for very little. And as far as shopping goes the whole month of July is ¡REBAJAS! (sales) month in Spain so you can get really nice clothing for cheap. When I went abroad for the month honestly I spent a lot of money because I wanted to go out a lot, drink espressos, and eat in the Plaza often, but you can go and have just as good of a time for a lot less.
9. IT IS A UMASS PROGRAM – No matter what anyone says about different travel agencies and study abroad programs that are better than each other: if you go through a UMass program, it is a 100x easier and simpler process. I took 6 credits toward my major and they transferred directly to my major requirements AND I got GPA credit for them. The classes run for about an hour and a half to two hours each per day for major/minor students Mon-Thurs and 5 hours a day total for Mon-Fri for language learning classes. So they are much easier to do well in and enjoy in a foreign country AND they still count as if you took a semester long class at UMass…that is a steal my friends.
10. It will change your life. – Salamanca is so safe that no one ever had issues abroad. I lost my camera one night and someone found it and mailed it to me back in America for free to put it into perspective for you how amazing the people there are. I cried my eyes out getting on my flight home and contemplated skipping it to stay in Spain. I wake up every morning now with a tattoo on my right arm that says VIVA LA NOCHE (Live the night), something I got on my last night in Madrid before I flew home to Boston, just so I never forget how happy I was abroad and how hard I fell head over heels, on my face, sick to my stomach in love with Spain. It is one of those things that you won’t understand until you go. So think no further, sign up, and prepare to not come back to UMass the same person you were before you landed in Barajas Aeropuerto, Madrid.

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*** Holyoke Boys and Girls Club – (SPAN398A or LATINAM398A on SPIRE) ***
Another AMAZING opportunity I have had as a Spanish student at UMass Amherst was the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke. This was not a study abroad opportunity, but rather was a service learning experience. In Fall 2013, about a year ago, I participated in a semester long tutorial program at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke by simply enrolling in the class SPAN398A on Spire. I had to simply pass a Govt. Query check and be enrolled manually by Gloria Bernabe Ramos of the Latin American Studies Department, but other than that I had to do no more than show up for the program and choose the dates I wanted to participate on to get involved.

As a participant in this program, I worked as a mentor at the after school program at “the club” two afternoons a week. The students (ages 5-8) would arrive at the club at 3 after school and be picked up by their parents around 6. Everyday for the first two hours of the program we would help the students get their homework done, practice their reading skills, and make sure they were understanding the material. For the last hour of the program each time we would get to play sports in the gym or a game with the students. Only about 5 other girls and I participated in this program from UMass for the semester, as well as some students from HCC participated. I never expected it to happen but this experience changed my perspective on a lot of things. I would worry about the students every time they would leave the club, as you can immediately tell when you drive into Holyoke that it isn’t a completely safe neighborhood. I always worked really hard to be a good example for the kids to show them that they are capable of going to college and following their dreams if they worked hard and stayed out of trouble. I felt way more conscious of my words and actions of everyday life, as well as more appreciative for all that I am blessed with and have taken for granted. Some of the kids I mentored came from absolutely horrendous home situations or from extremely impoverished communities, yet they always came to the club with a smile on their face. My experience at the Boys and Girls Club encouraged me to lead my life as a better person from the day I stepped through its doors, and I have not once looked back.

Volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke for the very first time can be an intimidating experience, however, I will not deny that. It is hard to know what to expect in such a foreign territory until you show up and dive right in, head first. I’m from Boston myself so the inner city feel was nothing new too me, but for a lot of students the culture shock/differences from Amherst to Holyoke can be shocking. I still remember feeling uncertain and a little nervous, however, on my very first day volunteering, when I myself passed through “the Club’s” doors for the first time. I sat anxiously in the lobby with my classmate Remy, awaiting the students to arrive from school. I was very excited to meet the young people whom I had heard so much about, as well as a little unsure of how I was going to initially break the ice between us. These kids didn’t know me and didn’t owe me anything, so how would I get them to listen to me and pay attention to my tutoring, I wondered? I worried that the kids would hesitate to trust my new and unfamiliar face, and more importantly that I would stick out as an “outsider,” as a white, female in a primarily Hispanic and Black community. I remember my heart racing a little as I watched a line of elementary school buses pull up outside and drop off packs of children. All of a sudden a rush of children poured through the front doors, caught in wild fit of shouting and laughter. Ranging from ages 5 through 8, the majority of the kids were Hispanic, though there were a handful of African American and White children as well.

Watching the kids come into the Club for the very first time was so humorous and heart warming that all of my previous concerns of not being accepted disappeared. I already felt welcome and comfortable enough within the community to be myself, which would tremendously help me to do my best job possible as a mentor. We cracked jokes and talked about our favorite sports, our favorite movies, how many brothers and sisters we had, and shared our stories before we got down to the business of studying. They took me in as one of their own immediately, even giving me a new name (Jordan) because they liked it better than Siobhan. I had never worked with kids or wanted to have kids before that moment, but they showed me how special they truly were and I loved every one of them very much. The all had a certain spark to themselves that made me laugh uncontrollably when they would say outrageous things about their teachers, what they wanted to be for Halloween, or when they would tell me about their day. They were very young and had such an interesting and humorous view of the world that I couldn’t help but always laugh at what they said. I loved them like they were my little brothers and sisters and will never forget how much I learned from the young people of Holyoke that fall.

We had to complete a weekly journal for this program describing how things were going, as well as a final research paper on a topic of our choice related to what we had learned by participating in the program. I chose my topic based on one of my observations from my very first day at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke. Of the 60-70 new kids that walked by me on that afternoon, they almost universally shared one thing in common: the sneakers they proudly donned on their feet. Nearly every single kid in the afterschool program was wearing a pair of Air Jordan basketball sneakers.There was clearly “Jordanmania,” or absolute craze for these ‘must-have’ basketball sneakers at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, so I got to thinking about why that was.

So I decided to do  some research on why Jordan’s are such a popular sneaker in urban communities such as Holyoke, what they mean to the people that spend a lot of money to buy them, and whether or not Jordan’s are “more than just a shoe”. I dedicated my paper to the Children of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Holyoke with the foreword, “May you always believe that anything is possible and that your wildest dreams will come true: once you’re wearing the right pair of shoes,” and to this day it is one of the papers I have written in my life of which I am most proud.

If you care to make a difference in the lives of young people that need positive role models and encouragement, and if you like working with children/would like to work with children, you absolutely must spend a semester over in Holyoke. I don’t have a car but it was never an issue as I carpooled with classmates or was always able to take the PVTA out there, so don’t let transportation hold you back. I earned 3 credits for participating in the program regularly on 2 afternoons M-F (3-6pm) per week, but you can also earn 6 credits by mentoring 4+ times per week. I participated as a mentor for children 5-8 years old, but there is also opportunity to work with students 9-12 after school from 3-6 or at the teen program Mondays, Wednesdays, and Friday nights (13-18 year olds) from 6-9pm.

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*** Some cool SPAN/LANGUAGE Classes available on campus ***
Now I am back from study abroad and taking normal classes as a senior at UMass. One awesome class I am in that I recommend to seniors/people that have finished their major requirements is (SPAN597A) “Foreign Language Teaching Methodology”. In this class we study how students learn a second language and the different methods that are used to teach foreign languages to non-native speakers. I have particularly enjoyed this class because many people in the class are graduate students from Spain, so it has been very helpful for my speaking and fluency to work with these advanced students. I am also taking (RUS110) “Elementary Intensive Russian” this semester because I have always been curious about the Russian language. It is going really well for me and I must say it is interesting learning a 3rd language now and starting over with something new. It makes me laugh a little when I struggle to say “green hat” or “how are you?” in Russian, because these are the simple things that I help the students I tutor in Spanish work with. But if anyone is thinking of picking up a new language I recommend it because it is lots of fun and I honestly believe if you know 2 languages you can learn 12. There is some kind of skill inherent to learning languages that works so if you are good at learning one you can study a bunch (in my opinion, of course). This spring I plan on taking the second semester of Elementary Russian as well as “Intensive Portuguese for Spanish speakers,” as this is another language that greatly interests me after I visited Lisbon this past summer.

Hope this helps and good luck exploring through the available opportunities at UMass!

Siobhan B. Elvin
selvin@student.umass.edu
Spanish and Portuguese 2014