Category Archives: Uruguay

Study Abroad in the Future.

When I was younger, I remember daydreaming about studying abroad and wondering what going to school in a different country would be like. However, now that I have the opportunity I’ve felt completely overwhelmed by the idea. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go or if I even liked the idea of living in a foreign country for an extended period of time without anyone, I knew near me. I’m very much a home body and feel safe in what is familiar so for me it would be a very big step. However, part of the study abroad experience is to step out of you comfort zone, meet new people, and be independent.

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Mentor opportunity with local non-profit

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Be a short-term mentor for university students from Latin America!!

Every summer in July and every winter in January, a non-profit called ITD (Institute for Training and Development, Inc.) manages and runs a Study of the U.S. Institutes Program (SUSI), a prestigious program that is sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. State Department. The program entails five weeks of intensive academic study in U.S. Policymaking, Entrepreneurship, Economic Empowerment, Leadership, and Politics. The highly competitive scholarship is awarded to twenty undergraduate students each time, all young leaders from Mexico and Central and South American countries. In the summers, the students who come to ITD are from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala; In the winters, they are from Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil. The students live in Amherst for three and half of the five weeks of their program, and attend specialized lectures at Amherst College and at ITD. Continue reading →

Doubts, Dreams, and My New Adventure

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As the end of the semester, and the first part of the Integrative Experience, draws closer and closer, I have begun to see changes in myself when reflecting on the beginning of the semester. Originally, I had no clue as to where I wanted to go abroad and found myself feeling a bit lost. Feeling lost and being a Junior in college do not make the best mix, and this caused quite a bit of anxiety for me in looking forward. I knew that I wanted to work in translation and interpreting but I wasn’t sure what next steps I should take to make that happen. I began to question myself and doubt if I had chosen the right field.

However, as the semester progressed and our IE class made us reflect deeper and deeper on our drives, our goals, and our passions for learning Spanish, I began to feel more grounded. This class does not just make its students do arbitrary work, every assignment and every minute of class time was used to help us form a plan for ourselves, and understand the difficulties that come with them. Continue reading →

Started Wide Open… Still Wide Open

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So this is weird. Everybody else gets to write all kinds of sentimental reflections about their time at UMass and I still have another year to go. That being said, a lot of stuff has gone on in the last year so I’ll see what I can come up with.

One year ago I was just finishing up SPAN 240. I was a declared Spanish major but hadn’t gotten to any real courses, never mind have any idea what I was going to do with my degree. The only certainty I had was my semester abroad in Montevideo, Uruguay in the fall of ’13. My time there was unforgettable and as cliché as I can sound, it was the best 5 months of my life. My host family, I swear, is the nicest family in all of Uruguay; I had two great host parents that helped me with everything I needed and were always up for a chat at any time of day, and four host sisters and one brother who were all relatively close to my age. Staying there was the best part of my trip. Continue reading →

Two Weeks of Ignorance

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Buen día a todos, espero que todo vaya bien.

I’m 8 days away from my Uruguayan tourist visa running out which means I’m 8 days away from the 3 month mark of my stay in Montevideo. Like Siobhan has mentioned a few times, the time flies, so take advantage of it, I can only imagine how fast her one month program went! For any future generation students reading this a one month program is a great experience, a semester is an awesome experience but the best has to be the year long program. I was planning on the one year plan down here in Montevideo but I’m going to be mixing up my academics a little bit back at UMass which means I have to get back home after just a semester. At first I was excited because I had been feeling overwhelmed by the idea of a year down here, but now that I’ve been here for almost three months I feel settled. Continue reading →

Here we go…

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I’m about to go to bed for my first night in Montevideo, UY and what a day… I didn’t think that flying was going to be too bad but after getting off a 3 hr flight from Boston to Miami and having to rush right onto my 9 hr flight to Montevideo I think it’s safe to say I hate flying, for the time being at least.

What’s hit me the most today is the reality of culture shock. We talked about it in class and I read about it and checked out the culture exercises that Grace put up on Moodle last semester, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for this. Ever since I got in line boarding my flight from Miami to Montevideo I have been a minority. Not necessarily in skin color but absolutely in language and culture. Frankly it’s terrifying. I thought I was going to be able to hold my own with my Spanish, that was wrong. Listening to these people (or any native speakers I would think) is so far from a classroom, even Luis, that it’s like everyone is speaking Swahili. I think I’ve found that the best way to get through this is to completely swallow your pride. I have never been on an international flight before so right off the plane in Montevideo I had no clue where to go. I must have asked six different people directions between getting to customs (40 feet in front of my face), getting through customs, getting my baggage, scanning my baggage again, and then finding the exit (again right in front of my face) and getting in my taxi to go to the university. Continue reading →