Apart from being a Spanish major, I also major in Film. I have taken a lot of classes that focus on international film, as well as film analysis and criticism. I took a class titled Contemporary Hispanic Cinema; the course focused on films that have been released within the last 10 years. Although it was a film course and we focused a lot on film analysis, the films had an overlying theme of collective memory. The films were from different Spanish speaking countries, and they all focused on a different history from that country. I think the course made me more curious about some of the history of Spanish-speaking countries.

I have also taken some courses in Theater because of my minor. I had no interest in acting but I was curious about lighting and scenic design. I was required to take an acting class and, honestly, I went into it thinking I would learn nothing from it. However, it made me better at analyzing text, reading between the lines to find more meaning in what characters say. It taught me to pay more attention to a character’s actions and how to explain the emotion conveyed by performances or certain choices actors make. The class also taught me how to be more comfortable with public speaking. Something that has come in handy, since I have had to present in some classes since. Overall, I would take any opportunity to learn something new, you never know how it might help you in the future.

This semester I have been volunteering in a program called Inglés Sin Limites organized by ANEP (La Administración Nacional de Educación Pública) in Uruguay. It is an entirely virtual program of “godparents.” The program’s goal is to bring English education to the rural school in Uruguay. Some of these schools are small with only one or two teachers, some of whom live in the school. These teachers may sometimes teach an entire grade level or sometimes even mixed levels. Each godparent is assigned a school for them to work with during the school year. In some cases, the godparents meet with the class via Zoom or Google Meets once a week to talk to the students. The students and teacher can ask questions, practice having small conversations, or sometimes even pronunciation. The program is made so that both the students and the teacher can learn English. There is a textbook and a series of videos created for the teacher to play to their students and the godparent is an extra support for them. The godparents are also available to the teachers through WhatsApp. Some godparents are not available during the school day and instead will make videos or send audio messages for the students for practice or extra help. 

I was assigned a school in Colonia, Uruguay made up of about ten fourth-graders. I met with them every Friday for about 30-45 minutes. It was mostly up to them that we would do in that time. They liked to ask questions to clean up their pronunciation, they would ask about sentence structure or how to express certain ideas that were common to them, but they had not learned yet. There was one day where they made a list of words in Spanish that they wanted to know in English. This was very similar to another program I worked with in High School, called the Cape Cod Literacy Council, that provided English classes for people on Cape Cod. The classes were mostly made up of Portuguese and Spanish speakers living on the Cape. Both experiences have been incredibly fulfilling and I feel somehow closer to Uruguay after participating in it. My family is from there and originally, I did want to study abroad. However, I feel like this experience was more fulfilling in that I was able to actually do something for the community instead of just visiting it.